Senator Charles E. Schumer visits Oxford's Kutik’s Honey Farm and tells USDA to reverse course

OXFORD – Standing amidst a swarm of advocates, at Kutik’s Honey Farm in Chenango County, U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer today revealed how a recent under-the-radar decision on bees could sting Upstate, the Southern Tier, its local Ag efforts, and even a budding jobs niche that supplies summer farmers’ markets and local restaurants.

Schumer detailed a recent fed decision by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to stop collecting data on honey bees that puts the species and Upstate New York’s economy, at risk. Schumer said that the Southern Tier is a hive of productivity, but that this recent decision by the feds could derail much of what keeps Upstate competitive and robust as an agricultural hub. Schumer called on the USDA to reverse course immediately, and instead, step-up their work on bee populations. Schumer revealed numbers that proved his point and hit home the critical importance of honey bees to Upstate New York and the Southern Tier’s agriculture sector.

“It sure helps, but you don’t need to be a beekeeper to understand the benefit pollinating bees have on the Upstate economy and the Southern Tier,” said Senator Schumer. “Look around and you will see that they boost an agricultural hive of economic productivity. From farmers’ markets, to farm-to-table restaurants, to the farms and apple orchards that solidify the Southern Tier as an agricultural hub, we have a lot to tout —and it is because of bees like these. So to find out that, in an under-the-radar move from Washington, the USDA has clipped the wings of a critical data-collection program on honey bee colonies, impacting jobs and productivity in places like the Southern Tier, really stings.”

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Schumer explained that this July, USDA said it would stop collecting data for its Honey Bee Colonies report. The Honey Bee Colonies report, conducted by USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, is released on an annual basis and contains critical data, tracking active honey bee colonies, new colonies and lost colonies. Schumer called the decision to suspend data collection for the report especially concerning, considering the devastating honey bee colony losses experienced in the United States over the past few decades. According to a report from USDA, the number of active honey bee colonies plummeted from 6 million in the 1940s to roughly 2.5 million in 2017. More recently, during the winter of 2018, beekeepers suffered their worst losses on record. Data from the University of Maryland’s Bee Informed Partnership shows that beekeepers lost 37.7% of their colonies during this season, 8.9% higher than the average for winter. Schumer argued that this historic population decline shows that USDA should ratchet up its honey bee data collection, not shut it down.

Schumer said that New York State and the Southern Tier have not been immune to the devastation of honey bee colonies. According to the most recent Honey Bee Colonies report released by USDA, between January and December of 2018, New York State beekeepers lost a total of 14,700 colonies of honey bees. Meanwhile, in the first three months of 2019, New York State beekeepers lost an additional 3,400 colonies. Schumer said these losses, combined with the fact that according to a June 2018 New York State Department of Agriculture report, crops dependent on honey bee pollination are worth $1.2 billion annually to the state, present a critical need to understand what exactly is causing them and how they can be reversed. This data is critical to protecting the honey bee-reliant Upstate New York agricultural industry.