NEW YORK — A prolonged and mysterious reduction in the population of the nation’s honeybees, a trend worrisome both to beekeepers and farmers who depend on the insects to pollinate their crops, apparently worsened last year.
In an annual survey released Wednesday by the Bee Informed Partnership, a consortium of universities and research laboratories, about 5,000 beekeepers reported losing 42.1 percent of their colonies in the 12-month period that ended in April. That is well above the 34.2 percent loss reported for the same period in 2013 and 2014, and it is the second-highest loss recorded since year-round surveys began in 2010.