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Wait, does America suddenly have a record number of bees?

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Where in the unholy heck did all these bees come from?!

After almost two decades of relentless colony collapse coverage and years of grieving suspiciously clean windshields, we were stunned to run the numbers on the new Census of Agriculture (otherwise known as that wonderful time every five years where the government counts all the llamas): America’s honeybee population has rocketed to an all-time high.

We’ve added almost a million bee colonies in the past five years. We now have 3.8 million, the census shows. Since 2007, the first census after alarming bee die-offs began in 2006, the honeybee has been the fastest-growing livestock segment in the country! And that doesn’t count feral honeybees, which may outnumber their captive cousins several times over.

This prompted so many questions. Does this mean the insect apocalypse is over? Are pollinators saved? Did we unravel the web of maladies known as colony collapse disorder?

But let’s start with the most important question: Is there, in fact, a bee boom?

We consider the census from the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to be the gold standard, but another data set from those quantitative crusaders, the annual honey report, actually shows bee colonies losing ground.

Agriculture Department economist Stan Daberkow, who helped write the definitive comparison of these sources, retired in 2008 but continues to follow the beekeeping business closely. When we tracked him down, he dove headfirst into our data mystery, sending us theories and exchanging emails at 1:35 a.m. and beyond.

Like any source produced by humans and constrained by budgets, Daberkow said, the honey report and Census of Agriculture have their limitations. The honey report focuses on operations with five or more hives, while the census includes every farm in the country. In this case, “farm” means any plot of land that sells at least $1,000 of agriculture products in a year, a measure that could include more hobbyists and dabblers in the buzz biz.

Inflation also increases the share of beekeepers who qualify for the census: The Agriculture Department’s $1,000 farm definition hasn’t changed since 1975. So as honey prices, pollination fees, hive prices and other sources of bee revenue rise, more hobbyists will magically transmogrify into “farmers.” Some of those new farmers, plus others discovered through census outreach efforts, might get added to the honey report. So next year’s honey report could paint a sunnier picture.

Daberkow said he was somewhat “leery” of the latest census data. Given less-than-ideal recent honey prices, major producers shouldn’t have much incentive to expand their operations. “Any growth would likely have come in smaller operations, a demographic USDA goes to great lengths to track down for the census,” he said.

Sure enough, the census shows the number of operations with any bee colonies has ascended far faster than honey production or bee-colony counts — about 160 percent since 2007.

Much of the explosion of small producers came in just one state: Texas. The Lone Star State has gone from having the sixth-most bee operations in the country to being so far ahead of anyone else that it out-bees the bottom 21 states combined.

Our data showed the biggest increases in north Texas, a region not traditionally considered a honey hotbed. So we started dialing beekeepers to ask what was going on. The first thing we learned? Our job would be half as hard and twice as joyful if all our sources were Texas bee boosters. Every last one seemed genuinely thrilled to pick up the phone.

Consider John Talbert of Sabine Creek Honey Farm, age 85. A past president of both the Association for Facilities Engineering and the Texas Beekeepers Association, Talbert takes a spoonful of honey before bed each night and brings a jar of wildflower honey to every politician he meets. He does the same for his doctor and his dentist.

“That’s so small that it couldn’t be considered a bribe,” Talbert told us. “It’s just a gesture of good faith!”

Talbert is such an infectious evangelist, we suspect that he and his many protégés could have propelled the great American bee resurgence by enthusiasm alone. But the Texas beekeepers all pointed to one clear reason for the bee boom — and that reason answered the phone on our second try.

Dennis Herbert wouldn’t strike you as a political mover and shaker. A retired wildlife biologist, Herbert, 75, boasts of no fancy connections and drops no names. But in 2011, after keeping bees for a few years, he went to the Texas legislature and laid out a simple hypothetical.

“You own 200 acres on the other side of the fence from me, and you raise cotton for a living. You get your ag valuation and cheaper taxes on your property. I have 10 acres on the other side of the fence and raise bees, and I don’t receive my ag valuation. And yet my bees are flying across the fence and pollinating your crops and making a living for you,” Herbert said. “Well, I just never thought that quite fair.”

In 2012, the Herbert Hypothetical gave rise to a new law: Your plot of five to 20 acres now qualifies for agriculture tax breaks if you keep bees on it for five years.

Over the next few years, all 254 Texas counties adopted bee rules requiring, for example, six hives on five acres plus another hive for every 2.5 acres beyond that to qualify for the tax break. Herbert keeps a spreadsheet of the regulations and drives across the state to educate bee-curious landowners.

Herbert himself doesn’t qualify for the exemption. His modest homestead in the tiny town of Salado, about an hour north of Austin, isn’t big enough. But, he says, “more bees provide more pollination, and so I get to eat a little better. I get my watermelon during the summer. And that doesn’t make me anybody special at all. I just, I like my watermelon.”

While Herbert never intended it, Texas bee exemptions have become big business. That has created an opportunity for Gary Barber, a former newspaper photographer.

Barber got bit by the bee bug after he left the Dallas Morning News in 2014. His firm, Honey Bees Unlimited, now leases and runs 1,500 hives for 170 clients in eight counties north of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. As developers split the once-rural countryside into five- and 10-acre ranchettes, he’s signing up new clients faster than he can split hives to place on their land.

“It’s crazy, the blanket of bees over these counties!” Barber said. “Honestly, it’s not bee country: You’re not going to make it like a traditional beekeeper. But it’s really great because … now we’ve got pollinators all around!”

Barber has risen to become vice president of the Texas Beekeepers Association and promotes the industry alongside Herbert — especially every other year when the Texas legislature is in session.

“There’s usually some legislator that wants to mess with [the tax break], and we’ve got to go tell them why it’s great,” Barber told us. “And luckily, while our two political parties don’t agree on much, they all seem to want to save bees.”

These Texans helped explain the rise in beekeeping operations. And they built our trust in the Census of Agriculture as a purveyor of weird truth. But even with its army of small producers, Texas still ranks only sixth in the number of actual bee colonies. To find the true core of the bee boom, we had to make like the Village People and go west.

When the census was taken in December 2022, California had more than four times as many bees as any other state. We emailed pollination expert Brittney Goodrich at the University of California at Davis, who explained that pollinating the California almond crop “demands most of the honeybee colonies in the U.S. each year.”

Every February and March, something like 170 million almond trees unite in one of Earth’s great synchronized acts of sexual reproduction — made possible by the migration of the bees.

Pollination — not honey prices — has been the true rocket booster strapped to the back of the modern beekeeping industry. And almond pollination is responsible for $4 of every $5 spent on bee fertility assistance in the United States, according to NASS.

America’s almond acreage has more than doubled since 2007 as the world’s food firms race to stuff the nut into every conceivable granola mix, nut butter and milk substitute. So it seems reasonable to assume the honeybee population doubled along with it. After all, those almonds aren’t pollinating themselves.

(Editor’s note: Some of those almonds are, in fact, pollinating themselves. But self-pollinating trees remain a small minority.)

So the situation on the ground seems to confirm the census: We probably do have a record number of honeybees.

Sadly, however, this does not mean we’ve defeated colony collapse. One major citizen-science project found that beekeepers lost almost half of their colonies in the year ending in April 2023, the second-highest loss rate on record.

For now, we’re making up for it with aggressive management. The Texans told us that they were splitting their hives more often, replacing queens as often as every year and churning out bee colonies faster than the mites, fungi and diseases can take them down.

But this may not be good news for bees in general.

“It is absolutely not a good thing for native pollinators,” said Eliza Grames, an entomologist at Binghamton University, who noted that domesticated honeybees are a threat to North America’s 4,000 native bee species, about 40 percent of which are vulnerable to extinction.

Grames helps lead EntoGEM, a collaborative effort to sift through more than 120,000 often-obscure scholarly articles worldwide in search of hidden insect-population data. Grames said the consensus holds that pollinators, like all insects, are in decline — losing probably 1 to 2 percent a year.

(“Pollinators” is not a synonym for “bees,” by the way. Legions of insects have evolved to help native plants with long-distance reproduction, including butterflies, moths, beetles, flies, midges and gnats. Many aren’t even fully known to science, so we can’t say with certainty they’re declining. But optimism would seem misplaced.)

Many of the same forces collapsing managed beehives also decimate their native cousins, only the natives don’t usually have entire industries and governments pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into supporting them. Grames compared the situation to birds, another sector in which maladies common in farmed animals, such as bird flu, threaten their wild cousins.

“You wouldn’t be like, ‘Hey, birds are doing great. We’ve got a huge biomass of chickens!’ It’s kind of the same thing with honeybees,” she said. “They’re domesticated. They’re essentially livestock.”

Mace Vaughan leads pollinator and agricultural biodiversity at Xerces, an insect-conservation outfit that has grown from five to nearly 80 employees during his 24 years there. Vaughan says it’s not a zero-sum game: For native pollinators to win, honeybees don’t have to lose. If we focus not on tax breaks, but on limiting the use of insecticide and promoting habitats such as meadows, hedgerows and wetlands, all pollinators can come out ahead.

“We’ve got really well-meaning people who are keeping honeybees because, ‘Oh, I’ve got to save the bees.’ That’s not the way you save the bees!” Vaughan told us. “The way you support both honeybees and beekeepers — and the way you save native pollinators — is to go out there and create beautiful flower-rich habitat on your farm or your garden.”

Howdy! The Department of Data seeks your quantitative queries. What are you curious about: Should we pay blood donors? When does spring really start? What’s the best time to get your flu shot? Just ask!

If your question inspires a column, we’ll send you an official Department of Data button and ID card. This week we owe one to ace news researcher Razzan Nakhlawi, who helped us track down several bee-data experts.

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The average IRS tax refund is 32.4% lower this season. Here’s why

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The average tax refund is 10.4% lower than last year according to the latest Internal Revenue Service data, and inflation is taking more of those dollars.

Bill Oxford | E+ | Getty Images

The average tax refund this year is down 32.4% compared to last year, according to early filing data from the IRS. 

Tax season opened on Jan. 27, and the average refund amount was $2,169 as of Feb. 14, down from $3,207 about one year prior, the IRS reported on Friday. That figure reflects current-year refunds only.

However, the Feb. 14 filing data doesn’t include refunds receiving the earned income tax credit or additional child tax credit, which aren’t issued before mid-February, the IRS noted. The previous year’s filing data included tax returns claiming these credits. The value of these tax breaks can be substantial, even resulting in five-figure refunds, in some cases.

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Typically, you can expect a refund when you overpay taxes throughout the year via paycheck withholdings or quarterly estimated payments. By comparison, there’s generally a tax bill when you haven’t paid enough.

Filing season numbers will ‘even out’

‘Don’t call the IRS’ for refund updates

The latest filing statistics come amid mass layoffs for the agency as Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, continues to cull the federal workforce

It’s unclear exactly how the staffing reduction could impact future taxpayer service. But experts recommend double-checking returns for accuracy to avoid extra touch points with the agency.

“Don’t call the IRS looking for your refund,” said Tom O’Saben, an enrolled agent and director of tax content and government relations at the National Association of Tax Professionals. 

You can check the status of your refund via the agency’s “Where’s My Refund?” tool or the IRS2Go app, which is “available 24 hours a day,” O’Saben said.

Typically, the agency issues refunds within 21 days of a return’s receipt. But some returns require “additional review,” which can extend the timeline, according to the IRS.

Future of CFPB: Here's what's at stake

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Gold prices have spiked in 2025 — what investors need to know

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An attendant holds 1-kilogram gold bars on Feb. 17, 2025.

Akos Stiller/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Gold prices are popping. But investors should avoid the temptation to chase a shiny object, investment experts said.

The SPDR Gold Shares fund (GLD), which tracks the price of gold bullion, is up about 11% in 2025 as of 2 p.m. ET Tuesday. Returns are up about 42% over the past year. (Prices were down more than 1% on Tuesday.)

Gold futures prices are also up about 10% year-to-date and currently 36% higher compared to the price a year ago. 

By comparison, the S&P 500 U.S. stock index is up about 1.5% in 2025 and 17% in the past year.

Lee Baker, a certified financial planner, said he wasn’t getting client calls about gold a year ago. Now, he fields them regularly.

He thinks investors would be wise to remember the classic rule from Warren Buffett, “Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.”

Goldman Sachs' Daan Struyven on why gold is his favorite commodity

“It feels to me everyone is starting to get greedy as it pertains to gold,” said Baker, owner and president of Claris Financial Advisors, based in Atlanta, and a member of CNBC’s Advisor Council.

The typical investor shouldn’t have an allocation to gold that exceeds 3% of a diversified portfolio, Baker said.

Investors enticed by lofty returns may make a knee-jerk reaction and buy a big chunk of gold (literally or figuratively) — and, in the process, make the common investment mistake of buying high and selling low, he said.

“If you’re going to make money with gold you need to buy and sell it — and hopefully sell it at right time,” Baker said. “And if you’re getting in now, are you buying at a peak? I don’t know.”

Why gold prices are up

Gold rally driven by countries 'starting to give hesitance' in owning U.S. treasuries: CIO

The sanctions led some central banks — in China, most notably — to buy more gold instead of U.S. Treasury bonds to avoid the potential difficulty of accessing assets denominated in U.S. dollars during a future geopolitical conflict, Samana said.

That has driven up gold demand higher compared to the price a year ago — and prices with it, he said.

“Don’t chase” gold returns, Samana said: “As a whole, you probably want to hold off on precious metals at [current] levels.”

Experts don’t expect gold to continue to shine.

“There’s no reason in my mind gold will continue to have a significant uptrend, barring — and I certainly hope not — some sort of protracted war,” Baker said.

How to invest in gold

Sanshandao Gold mine in Laizhou, Shandong province, China, on Jan. 17, 2025. 

CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images

Similar to Baker, Samana believes it may be okay for investors to hold 1% to 2% of a well-diversified portfolio in gold.

Investors interested in buying gold should consider it as a piece of a broader commodities portfolio, which likely includes allocations to energy, agriculture and base metals like copper alongside precious metals like gold, Samana said.

Wells Fargo’s investment models have an overall commodities allocation that ranges from 2% for conservative investors to 7% for more aggressive growth, he said.

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Student loan should take these steps amid risks to Education Department

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Students walk through the University of Texas at Austin on February 22, 2024 in Austin, Texas. 

Brandon Bell | Getty Images

Gather student loan records ASAP

If the Trump administration is successful in dismantling key parts of the Education Department, the Treasury Department would be the next most logical agency to administer student debt, said Betsy Mayotte, president of The Institute of Student Loan Advisors, a nonprofit.

It’s also possible that the Justice Department or the Department of Labor could carry out some of the Education Department’s functions, according to a December blog post by The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.

But the transfer of tens of millions of borrowers’ account information between agencies would likely lead to errors, experts said. As a result, borrowers should gather the latest information on their student loan balance now, and keep an updated record of it, Yu said.

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At Studentaid.gov, borrowers should be able to access data on their student loan balance and payment progress, Yu said. If you don’t know which company services your student debt, you can find that information on that site, as well.

Borrowers should also request a complete payment history of their student loans if their debt has been transferred between companies in the past, Yu said. All this documentation will come in handy if your loan balance or payment history is reported inaccurately in the future.

Those who are pursuing Public Service Loan Forgiveness should certify their work history with the Education Department now, Yu said, “to ensure all eligible periods of employment count toward PSLF.”(PSLF offers debt erasure for certain public servants after 10 years of payments, and borrowers have already long complained of inaccurate payment counts.)

Protecting your student loan data

Consumer and privacy advocates are also concerned by recent reports that Musk’s DOGE had entered the Department of Education and gained access to federal student loan data on tens of millions of borrowers.

In a Feb. 6 letter signed by 16 Democratic senators, including Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Chuck Schumer of New York, the lawmakers said that the Education Department’s student loan database “contains millions of borrowers’ highly sensitive information, including Social Security numbers, marital status, and income data.”

That data “could be used to target financially vulnerable people for Musk’s upcoming financial services company, could be easily breached, or abused in any number of ways,” said Ben Winters, the director of artificial intelligence and privacy at the Consumer Federation of America.

A federal judge in Maryland on Monday granted a temporary restraining order barring DOGE staffers from accessing individuals’ sensitive data at the Education Department until March 10 while a lawsuit unfolds.

Unfortunately, “it’s nearly impossible to track a specific source of data, including how it’s leaked or used or sold,” Winters said. With that being said, people can check if certain information was included in a data breach on websites like, haveibeenpwned.com, he said.

Some services manage your online presence to try to limit where your data ends up, such as one offered by Discover, Winters said. Monitoring your credit score each month to ensure no unauthorized accounts have been opened in your name can also be useful, he added.

“Also carefully scan your card and account statements periodically,” Winters said.

If you’re worried about how your personal data with the Education Department may have been used, you can make a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at consumerfinance.gov/complaint. You may also report it to your state’s attorney general.

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