The Scale of What Is Already Gone
A single honeybee colony can contain up to 80,000 workers. In the United States alone, beekeepers lost an estimated 45.5% of managed honeybee colonies in 2022 to 23, according to the Bee Informed Partnership, one of the highest annual losses on record. Europe has seen wild bee populations drop by more than 25% over the past three decades. In India, the western honeybee (Apis mellifera) and the indigenous Apis cerana have both seen range contractions, with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research flagging pollinator decline as a direct threat to horticultural output in states like Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and parts of the Northeast.
