Australia, Our Bees Are Dying

And it is costing you money.

Honey bees around the globe are in trouble.

Due to climate change, pesticides and disease, the Australian Honeybee population is decreasing every year.

Between the years 2006 and 2016, Australia lost over 100 thousand commercial Honeybee hives. That’s more than 20% of honey-producing hives lost in a single decade.

While some states with smaller hive populations, like Western Australia and Tasmania, grew their population, our biggest supplying states all faced a dramatic loss.

Number of Honeybee Hives by State

So what does that mean for us?

Despite having less of a chance of being stung this spring, the declining population is actually not a good thing.

In fact, it has a very large impact on agriculture and economy. At risk of stating the obvious, less honey bees in Australia means less honey. This means we have to rely on foreign honey sourced from imports in order to satisfy demand, and it also means we have less product to export.

In 2013, for the first time in the ABS’s documented years, our honey imports surpassed our honey exports.

Since 2013, our documented imports remain higher than our exports.

Therefore, we are spending more money bringing honey into the country than we are making from sending it out.

As the bee population decreases and the amount of honey being produced in Australia dwindles, the Gross Value of Production (GVP), which is the value calculated using prices where ownership changes hands (i.e. where the honeykeepers sold it to a factory or to a customer at a marketplace), has also been going up and down.

The GVP for the Australian honeybee industry dropped dramatically in 2008 and 2011 and the rising price of honey followed suit.

While the GVP in recent years shows growth, the consistent decline of honeybee hives shows that it is not due to an increase in production, but an increase in price.

This means not only is Australia spending more money to import honey. You, as a consumer, have to spend more to buy it.

But wait. There’s more.

It’s not just Australia that’s suffering.

The honeybee population decline is a global epidemic.

Honey bees the US, England, and many countries in Europe are following the same trends as their Australian counterparts and everyone should be concerned.

(Featured Image: Dmitry Grigoriev)