Honey Bee Colony Losses by State and Quarter: USDA Data, 2015 to 2026

What eleven years of USDA data show

Winter is the expensive quarter. Across every quarter USDA has reported, January to March averages 15.0% of colonies lost, against 11.6% for April to June, 11.9% for July to September and 13.5% for October to December. The worst single quarter in the series was January to March 2015 (18%); the best was July to September 2021 (9%). The most colonies lost in one quarter was 502,350, from October to December 2016.

Losses have eased. Adding the four quarters together, operations with five or more colonies lost about 1.72 million colonies in 2015 and about 1.31 million in 2025. Beekeepers replace most of them: in 2025 they added 1.45 million colonies by splitting hives and buying packages and nucs, which is why the number of colonies on January 1 barely moves. It was 2.82 million in 2015 and 2.81 million in 2026, up 6% on January 1, 2025.

Why this is not the 40% figure in the news

Each June the US Beekeeping Survey, run by Auburn University with Oregon State University and the Apiary Inspectors of America, publishes an annual loss rate. For April 2025 to April 2026 it was 39.9%, down from record years of 55.1% (2023 to 2024) and 55.6% (2024 to 2025). The two surveys measure different things:

	USDA Honey Bee Colonies	US Beekeeping Survey
Who answers	A stratified sample of operations with 5 or more colonies	Volunteers: more than 2,300 beekeepers with 219,000 colonies in 2025 to 2026
Period	Each calendar quarter	April to April, split into summer and winter
Rate	Colonies lost in the quarter divided by colonies on its first day	Colonies lost divided by all colonies at risk over the year, including ones made or bought
Backyard keepers	Operations under 5 colonies are reported separately, if at all	Included; they lost 54.8% in 2025 to 2026 against 38.7% for commercial operations

Neither is wrong. A beekeeper who loses 16% in winter and smaller shares in the other three quarters can easily lose a third of the colonies they managed across a year, which is what the annual survey captures.

Varroa mites, every quarter

Varroa mites have been the most reported stressor in every quarter since 2015. The share of colonies affected peaked at 56.4% from April to June 2018 and has fallen since: 28.3% in January to March 2025 and 22.2% in April to June 2026. One note for anyone checking our numbers: the summary text of USDA's August 2026 report gives 26.3% for April to June 2026, but its own table gives 22.2%, and 26.3% is the April to June 2025 figure. We use the table. A mite count in spring and late summer is still the single most useful thing a backyard keeper can do.

Colony collapse disorder

USDA counts colonies lost with all four collapse disorder symptoms separately: few dead bees in or around the hive, a rapid loss of adults while the queen, brood and stores remain, delayed robbing, and no varroa or nosema explanation. Operations with five or more colonies reported 93,770 such losses in January to March 2026, down 18% on the 114,680 of a year earlier. Revisions can be large: USDA first put January to March 2025 at 148,410 before revising it to 114,680.

Which states lose the most

State figures use a different base: colonies lost divided by the most colonies in the state during the quarter, which counts hives trucked in for pollination. That makes winter numbers in the northern plains look tiny, because most of their colonies spend January to March in California's almond orchards; Montana reported 10 colonies lost out of 62,000 that winter. In January to March 2026 the highest shares were Pennsylvania (23%), North Carolina and California (18% each) and New York (17%). In April to June 2026 they were Florida (19%), Georgia (17%) and Iowa (15%). Over every quarter since 2015, Georgia averages the highest share (15.2%) and Montana the lowest (5.4%).

USDA reported 45 states individually until April to June 2024 and 20 states since; the rest are in Other States. The tracker shows each state's series for as long as USDA published it.

What it means for a backyard apiary

Plan for losses rather than hoping to avoid them. Starting with two colonies, as the how many hives guide suggests, lets you combine or split when one fails, and the startup cost calculator shows what a replacement package or nuc costs. Order replacements early from the suppliers in our where to buy bees guide; spring packages sell out.

How we built this

We downloaded every Honey Bee Colonies report from May 2016 to August 2026 from USDA NASS and read the colony, stressor and collapse disorder tables for each quarter, 3,814 state rows in all. Every row was checked against the table's own layout in the PDF, and later reports replace earlier estimates for the same quarter. USDA suspended its July 2019 data collection, so April to June 2019 is missing. Dashes in USDA's tables (zero) and "(Z)" entries (less than half a unit) are shown as zero.