Honey bee colonies for operations with 5 or more colonies in Iowa as of January 1, 2019, totaled 7,500 colonies. This is 82 percent below the 41,000 colonies on January 1 last year, and 64 percent below the 21,000 colonies during the October-December 2018 quarter. Producers boosted their January 1 inventory by moving colonies into Iowa and adding colonies to a maximum of 11,500 during the January-March 2019 quarter. Since January 2018 the July-September 2018 quarter had the largest maximum number of colonies, with 57,000, while January-March 2019 quarter had the smallest maximum number of colonies with 11,500.
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