Our mission is to increase the number of bees in the United States to help the environment, and humans.

We’ve all heard documentary narrators and others say time and time again, “Bees are the most important species on this planet, we cannot eat without the bee.”  It is true, that the European honey bee is one of the most important keystone species on this planet. What is not said though, is that the honey bee is more beneficial to the environment than just pollinating crops and providing honey for humans. Our mission is to increase the number of bees in the United States to help the environment and humans. We seek out corporate partners with significant landholdings who share our concerns and who want to be part of the solution.

The Honeybee

When located around an abundance of sources, a single honeybee can pollinate between 3,000-5000 flowers a day. This means that during the height of a colony's annual population cycle, that colony can pollinate between 250-300 million flowers in a single day! That is a lot of natural beauty being regenerated.  

This cross-pollination of blooming plants leads to healthier stronger more sustainable ecosystems creating a virtuous cycle for the environment. It is well known that larger species of herbivores prefer vegetation made sweeter through these blooms, whether berries on a bush or a clover in the field. 

When looking at berries the true power of honeybee pollination can be seen. Each and every berry was made possible only through pollination, most likely the pollination of a honey bee. 

A favorite food of primary consumers, such as deer and rabbit, in an ecosystem, especially in North America, is clover. Clover is also a favorite of the honey bee and when a bee pollinates the clover bloom it strengthens the plant through genetic diversity, which leads to more abundant clover, which leads to more animals moving in to consume the clover. 

Through this cycle, the more bees that are in a given area, the healthier the vegetation biodiversity of that area becomes for the plants and the primary consumers. When animals higher up in the food chain consume these lower food chain animals, e, the healthier they become.  The more bees, the healthier the entire ecosystem becomes.

The Problem

When looking at the honey bee population the individual bee does not count toward the population as a whole, as it is rather insignificant. Honey bee populations are counted by the number of colonies that exist. As the actual bee population of a hive fluctuates throughout the year from 10,000 up to 50,000 it is the colony that matters more than the individual. There is a drastic difference between 1 million bees and 1 million beehives (35 billion bees if a moderate estimate is taken).

The decline of the bee population in the United States has been well documented, with major press coverage in the 2010s of the Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). In the mid-1970s the managed bee population (based on a survey of beekeepers with 300 or more hives) was just shy of 4.2 million hives. Now, in 2024, there are only 2.6 million hives in the United States. What’s more, the current-day survey was conducted with beekeepers who had 5 or more hives, which cast a much larger net, so one can assume that the 1970s number would have been significantly higher if this wider net was applied to that survey as well.

This decline in bee population has a myriad of contributing causes, none of which have been scientifically proven to be the sole culprit. Some of these causes include the decreased amount of pollinator plants in fields and lawns, the former due to industrialized farming practices and the second due to the growth of the lawn care industry, which took away individual lawns for bees to find food. 

Another uphill battle that honeybees have to deal with beyond the loss of suitable forage lands is the varroa mite. This pest is not a danger to humans, and not really a danger to bees, but the problem is that when left untreated the varroa mite has a very short gestation period and therefore can grow populations that can overrun a hive very quickly. The varroa mite is blamed for much of the disappearance of wild honey bee populations as these colonies are left untreated. To further highlight the problem, it was once thought that wild bee populations were equal to their managed counterparts, but recent studies show that the wild bee population has faced an even more serious decrease.

Furthermore, the issue of the bee population as a whole is the decline of the beekeeping industry, referring to the keeping of bees for commercial profit, which can include selling honey or utilizing bees for pollination services. In the 1970s, the commodity market for honey was enough for a commercial beekeeper to make a living, but with the influx of foreign honey, the commodity market has plummeted, driving profits down with it. The price of honey is so low that it is almost a burden for large-scale beekeepers to pull honey and expect to make a sustainable margin on it. Now, most commercial beekeepers do not raise bees for honey.  Instead, pollination services have become the main commercial use, namely the annual almond bloom in California.

Thus, honeybees are no longer abundant natural pollinators.  Instead, they have become workers in the agricultural industry. 

The Solution

Wind & Sky Apiaries looks to turn around this story. Our goal is to bring hive levels in the United States up to 1970s numbers by placing significant numbers of hives on lands held by energy companies and other large landowners. These properties, spread throughout the United States, can quietly and easily support vast numbers of apiaries without any impact on the primary use of the land.  The bees will benefit from an increase in their numbers and geographic disbursement.  The environment will benefit by having more pollinators. Our corporate partners will benefit from improved ESG scores, positive PR, and having their name attached to the turnaround in the legacy of the honey bee story. 

The problem is an enormous one, but combining the power of America’s economy to beekeepers nationwide is a problem that we can solve together.