Where have all the flowers gone? Honey bee declines and exclusions from floral resources

Abstract

This article considers the social drivers that shape beekeepers' lost access to floral resources, and how this contributes to honey bee and beekeeper vulnerability. Most large-scale beekeepers in the United States are migratory and depend on access to private land to produce honey and healthy bees—a surprisingly tenuous arrangement for producers who add over $17 billion to U.S. agriculture. This dynamic often places beekeepers in asymmetrical power relationships with both landowners and state entities that tend to favor property owners and farmers over migrant beekeepers. Consequently, land use policies often do not favor beekeepers or honey bees. Through three empirical cases in the Midwest, I show the varied processes and mechanisms that play a role in excluding beekeepers from floral resources. As beekeepers lose access to forage for honey production and face greater precarity, they increasingly turn to commercial pollination and manufactured pollen inputs—both of which can have negative impacts on honey bee health.