How Colorado's drought is impacting honeybees and honey production
HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. — Toly Melnikov became fascinated by his grandmother’s beekeeping during his summer trips to Russia as a teenager. It’s a curiosity that would eventually grow into his own passion.
Today, the ongoing drought in Colorado is threatening that passion. The historic warmth and lack of precipitation this year is stressing all pollinators, including honeybees, leaving them disoriented and with less to forage.
“This is a very, very unusual year. We basically had no winter. The winter was very warm … very dry,” said Melnikov, who has been beekeeping for eight years.
He takes care of 45 beehives — some in his backyard apiary and others on a stretch of open land in Castle Rock, about 10 miles south of his Highlands Ranch home. His wife Rachel sells their locally produced honey and participates in the annual Parker Honeybee Festival. They placed first in the honey sampling competition the last two years.
The unusual weather patterns are keeping Melnikov and other beekeepers on their toes as drought conditions continue after Colorado experienced one of its warmest and driest winters since record keeping began in 1895.
“One of the important milestones we keep an eye on is when dandelions show up. That’s the first source of food for the bees after a long winter," said Melnikov, who keeps a calendar for his beehives on an app he created called WhisperBee. “Everything got shifted by about a month.”
Dandelions usually start sprouting in mid-April, but this year they appeared in the first week of March, Melnikov said.
“The biggest risk with climates like that is they’re going to starve,” he said, referring to the honeybees.
During winter, honeybees typically stay inside their hives, cluster together and generate heat while slowly feeding on stored honey. When temperatures warm unexpectedly, Melnikov said, they begin flying earlier in search of nectar. If few flowers are blooming at that time, the bees can use up energy without finding enough food.
“They become malnutritioned, which makes them susceptible to diseases,” he said.
Managing hive survival remains a significant challenge for beekeepers. According to an annual U.S. beekeeping survey, an estimated 55.6% of managed honeybee colonies were reported lost between April 2024 and April 2025 — the highest loss rate since the survey began in 2010.
The USDA found that the parasitic mite Varroa destructor and the viruses it spreads were responsible for recent honeybee colony collapses.
Dry weather conditions also reduce honey production for Melnikov’s bees, since nectar flow depends on adequate moisture in plants.
“We have a huge linden tree. That one tree alone can produce about 60 pounds of honey in a season,” he said.
The tree — typically covered in white flowers that bloom for about two weeks in mid-June — only flowered for three days in Highlands Ranch last year, significantly reducing honey production.
In Castle Rock, where there is less plant variety and irrigation compared to Highlands Ranch, Melnikov said his beehives there — though double the population — consistently produce less honey than those in his backyard apiary.
According to a 2022 U.S. Department of Agriculture report, over the past three decades, honey production in the United States has declined by about 1.4% per year, while honey imports have increased by 7.6% per year.
“With drought conditions, we get less flowers, and then both the quantity and quality of the nectar and pollen can be impacted,” said Lisa Mason, a horticulture specialist and entomologist for Colorado State University Extension in Arapahoe County.
While honeybees can be managed, Mason said wild bees tend to suffer more in the dry conditions. Specialist bees, a type of wild bees that forages on very specific flowers and depends on those plant species to complete its life cycle, may struggle more because they are less adaptable.
“Honeybees are a managed species. Beekeepers and people that manage hives, we’re going to have to be intentional about how we take care of our honeybees. It’s devastating to lose colonies,” Mason said. “But it's also an important distinction between the wild bees too because we can replace honeybee colonies … that’s not the case with wild bees.”
Maintaining the health of honeybees is the top priority during drought years, Mason said, and beekeepers are adapting.
“If they’re dying at such an alarming rate, how are they still alive?” Melnikov said. “Whatever colonies do survive over winter, we split them — so out of one colony we make two, three or four colonies.”
When Melnikov splits them, he takes a few frames from a larger hive and places them in a smaller box called a nucleus colony.
“I have about a dozen nukes right now,” he said.
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