“If we keep losing hives at this pace, I don’t know how long we can stay in it.”

It's officially Spring! That means in a few weeks, the blueberry fields across the Pacific Northwest will turn white with blossoms.

It’s a beautiful sight. I never see it without thinking about the conversations I’ve had at kitchen tables and in equipment sheds with Oregon and Washington beekeepers. Spring is when the truth shows up. Bee colonies either came through winter strong, or they didn’t.

And this year the numbers are sobering. Recent national surveys show commercial beekeepers losing 40–50% of their colonies in 2025, levels that would devastate almost any other agricultural system. Many beekeepers tell me they are replacing nearly half their bees every season just to stay in business.

More than once I’ve heard the same sentence: “If we keep losing hives at this pace, I don’t know how long we can stay in it.”

That’s not drama. It’s math.

Right now, tens of thousands of hives are being placed in blueberry fields across the Willamette Valley, Oregon and Washington. What happens during this bloom won’t change this year’s harvest overnight. But it will tell us something more important: whether we are building strength for the seasons ahead or sliding further behind.

Spring sets the pattern.

When colonies come out of winter weak, they struggle to rebuild.
Struggling colonies produce fewer strong new hives over the summer.
Fewer strong hives this year means fewer bees available to pollinate crops next year.

And when losses become too great, some beekeepers are forced to step away entirely. When that happens, we don’t just lose bees. We lose decades of experience and thousands of hives that help pollinate the crops we rely on.

If that trend continues, the consequences are real. Fewer beekeepers mean fewer healthy hives available for pollination. Farmers are already competing for colonies during bloom. If supply continues to shrink, the cost of pollination rises, farms struggle to produce, and entire crops become more vulnerable.

Rebuilding that kind of capacity doesn’t happen in a season. It can take years.

I’m asking you to make a gift RIGHT NOW so we can strengthen the system before another season passes.

At Save the Bee, we focus on practical, local solutions.

Your support helps restore early-blooming habitats across Oregon and Washington so bees have the nutrition they need before and after crop pollination. It advances research at Oregon State University’s Honey Bee Lab with Dr. Ramesh Sagali, where scientists are working to improve colony survival and resilience. And it allows us to partner directly with growers and communities to educate and protect pollinators in working landscapes.

These efforts don’t make headlines. They build capacity. And capacity is what determines whether we have enough strong colonies in 2026, 2027, and beyond.

Oregon produces over 120 million pounds of blueberries each year, the 2nd leading producer in the United States just behind Washington. Those berries depend almost entirely on bees. So does 70% of our agriculture, the forage for our livestock and the broader health of our ecosystem.

Bees and beekeepers are critical to our food systems; the fruits, vegetables, meats and poultry that fills our grocery aisles. Your coffee (and cream), yogurt and blueberries at breakfast, your salad at lunch, and your chicken tomato basil pesto pasta at dinner.

When beekeepers step back because the economics no longer work, we all feel it. Bees quietly support a system ALL OF US rely on every day without thinking about it.

This is the moment to step forward.

A gift of $100 - you plant habitat that fuels bees in early spring.
A gift of $250 - you strengthen research that improves hive survival.
A gift of $500 - you accelerate both research and habitat growth, right here in Oregon. You don’t have to manage hives to shape the future of pollination in this region. But you can choose to invest in it.

Spring reveals what’s fragile. It also reveals who is willing to lead.

Will you stand with our bees, our beekeepers and our farmers today?

With gratitude,

Eric Mason
Executive Director, Save the Bee, eric.mason@savethebee.org, 541.607.2159

P.S. When too many colonies fail, the strain falls directly on the beekeepers who care for them and on the crops that depend on their bees. Please send your gift today to help reverse rising colony losses and ensure beekeepers have the strong, healthy hives needed for the seasons ahead.

No Bees No Blueberries

No bees. No blueberries. What happens next is up to us