Quantifying Texas honey bee health risks associated with dominant beekeeper business models to improve colony survival, honey production, and crop pollination services

Texas commercial beekeeping operations can be categorized into four groups: 1) stationary honey producers; 2) stationary honey producers who are also pollination providers; 3) migratory honey producers who produce two honey crops per year – one in Texas and one in the upper Midwest (ND, SD, MN); and 4) migratory honey producers who only produce out-of-state honey. Each of these operational types differ in several factors that can affect colony health, disease susceptibility, and management options that can be used. Such factors include: the timing and distance of colony movement, optimal timing for reaching maximum colony strength, and pesticide exposure rates. The goal of this project was to identify whether there is variation in management styles adopted by the most prevalent Texas beekeeper operational classes, and if so, to determine the major risk factors (e.g., disease loads, pesticide exposure, mortality) that beekeepers in each operational class experience throughout the season. Across all beekeeper participants, 288 colonies were monitored each year. Colony mortality was 58.8% in 2020 and 20.8% in 2021. Five types of management actions were tracked monthly from September 2019 to January 2021: Pest/Disease Treatment, Requeening, honey harvest, feeding, and equipment change. Migratory beekeeping operations executed a greater total number of management actions than the stationary operations, especially in treatment and feeding categories. There was wide variation among operations in all the colony health metrics examined, but there were no significant differences between beekeeper operational category in any of these metrics, including Varroa load, Nosema load, and colony size.