[Pollinator] Structure of the U.S. Beekeeping Industry: 1982-2002

[ladadams at aol.com]

Structure of the U.S. Beekeeping Industry: 1982-2002

Authors: Daberkow, Stan; Korb, Penni; Hoff, Fred

Source: Journal of Economic Entomology, Volume 102, Number 3, June 2009 
, pp. 868-886(19)

Abstract:

There have been major structural changes in the beekeeping industry 
over the past 25 yr. The U.S. Census of Agriculture surveys indicate 
that colony inventory declined >20% between 1982 and 2002, whereas the 
number of U.S. farms with apiculture enterprises fell >70%. This 
decline in farm numbers was not uniform across different sized farms 
based on colony inventory—nearly 30,000 of the farms exiting the 
apiculture business had fewer than 25 colonies. With the number of 
farms declining faster than colony inventory, there has been a shift to 
larger farms. The Appalachia, Corn Belt, and Northeast states have the 
highest shares of apiculture farms, whereas the Pacific, Northern 
Plains, and Mountain states account for the largest shares of colonies. 
Farms with apiculture enterprises are concentrated in the smallest 
sales categories—87% of such farms had <03050,000 in sales in 2002. 
Only about one third of farms with apiculture activity reported that a 
majority of sales were from apiculture products—such as honey or colony 
sales. Compared with all U.S. farms, per farm payments for all types of 
government programs were smaller for farms with apiculture activities. 
Only about half of all beekeepers regard farming as thei
r primary 
occupation, and nearly 60% of the operators work off the farm at least 
1 d a year and ≈40% work >200 d off the farm in a given year. 
Beekeepers resembled all other farmers demographically—nearly 90% are 
white males, with an average age of 55.





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