India runs on bees. Roughly 70% of the country’s food crops depend to some degree on pollinators, and in the Himalayan hills the apples, apricots, mustard and wild bloom that hold the landscape together are fertilised by the quiet daily work of foraging bees. So when bee colonies weaken and die — and across India they are — it is not only a beekeeper’s problem. It is a food-security problem, an ecosystem problem, and a warning worth taking seriously.
This guide is deliberately about the hard part: the specific threats bearing down on India’s bees, and what responsible beekeepers and honest brands actually do in response. It is a companion to our broader piece on what sustainable beekeeping is and our look at how beekeeping protects Himalayan biodiversity and pollination. Those explain the value of bees; this one is about what endangers them — and it aims to be honest rather than alarmist.
The short answer: India’s bees face five main pressures — pesticides (especially neonicotinoids), forage and habitat loss, a fast-warming climate, and devastating diseases and parasites like Thai sacbrood virus and the Varroa mite. No single one is the whole story, and no bee “apocalypse” is guaranteed. But the response is clear: keep native bees, protect diverse chemical-free forage, and manage disease honestly. That is exactly what ethical brands are built to reward.
Threat 1: Pesticides, and neonicotinoids in particular
The most talked-about threat is chemical. Neonicotinoids — a family of insecticides including imidacloprid, thiamethoxam and clothianidin — are among the most widely used crop chemicals in the world, and they are designed to attack the insect nervous system. That is the problem: a bee is an insect too. Neonics act on the same nicotinic cholinergic receptors in a bee’s brain that they target in pests.
At high doses the effect is simply lethal. An Indian study on the native Asian honey bee, Apis cerana, found that imidacloprid and thiamethoxam produced mortality of around 82–88% within 18 hours at a dose of 120 nanograms per bee. But the more insidious damage happens far below the killing dose. Sub-lethal exposure has been shown to impair a bee’s immune function, learning, navigation and foraging ability, and even to disrupt the circadian clock and sleep that bees rely on to time their foraging and remember where food is. A bee that cannot navigate home is as lost to the colony as a dead one.
These effects scale up. In a field study in Hungary, honey-bee colonies exposed to clothianidin went into winter weaker and emerged the following spring around 24% smaller. Weakened colonies are also more vulnerable to the diseases and parasites below — the threats compound each other rather than acting alone.
Where does India stand on regulation? Honestly, behind. India relies on bees for the majority of its crops, yet highly bee-toxic neonicotinoids such as imidacloprid, thiamethoxam and clothianidin remain in wide agricultural use. In May 2020 the government proposed banning or restricting 27 pesticides already curbed in other countries, and the Pesticide Management Bill, 2020 was meant to modernise the framework — but much of this has stalled, and these chemicals are still legally sold and sprayed. It is fair to say India has proposed reform, not delivered a neonicotinoid ban.
Threat 2: Forage and habitat loss
Bees do not live on a single crop. A healthy colony needs a succession of diverse flowers across the seasons — wild shrubs, hedgerows, weeds, forest bloom and mixed farm crops — so that pollen and nectar are available for months, not weeks. Modern intensive agriculture works against exactly this. When a valley is converted to a single cash crop, sprayed clean of “weeds,” and its hedgerows and wild margins cleared, the result for a bee is a food desert: a brief glut of one bloom followed by nothing.
In the hills, forage loss shows up as thinning wild-bee numbers even where orchards still flower on schedule. Growers in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand increasingly report full blossom but too few pollinators arriving — a gap so real that many apple farmers now rent managed colonies during flowering to lift fruit set. Loss of diverse, chemical-free forage is one of the quietest but most fundamental threats, because a hungry colony is a fragile colony.
Threat 3: A fast-warming Himalayan climate
The Himalaya is warming faster than the global average, and that is reshuffling the timing that bees and flowers evolved together over millennia. When mountain flora bloom too early or too late because of a warm spell or an erratic monsoon, the flowering window and the bee foraging window fall out of sync — what ecologists call a phenological mismatch. The flowers open when few bees are flying, or the bees emerge to find the bloom already gone. Nectar becomes scarce at exactly the wrong moment.
Climate models across Asia single out Apis cerana — India’s native hive bee — as especially vulnerable to these shifts. Add erratic rainfall, sudden temperature swings and more intense storms that damage hives directly, and you have a slow, grinding stress on colonies that makes every other threat harder to survive.
Threat 4: Disease and parasites
This is where India’s bee story turns genuinely dramatic, and it is the threat least understood by the honey-buying public. Two names dominate.
Thai sacbrood virus (TSBV) is one of the most damaging bee diseases Asia has seen, and its primary victim is Apis cerana — the very bee at the heart of traditional Indian beekeeping. It first struck North India between 1978 and 1985, wiping out colonies. Then came catastrophe: the 1991–92 outbreak in South India destroyed an estimated 90% of the region’s Apis cerana colonies. In the Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu alone — then a beekeeping hub of roughly two lakh colonies — more than 250,000 colonies were lost, gutting the livelihoods of tens of thousands of beekeepers. Unlike pests that weaken a hive slowly, TSBV can empty an entire apiary in a matter of weeks, and it has not gone away: it resurfaced in Telangana in 2021.
The Varroa mite (Varroa destructor) is the great threat to the introduced European honey bee, Apis mellifera, which is widely kept in India for commercial honey. This parasitic mite feeds on a bee’s fat body and blood-like haemolymph and, critically, transmits deformed wing virus and other pathogens. Without active management, a Varroa-infested colony typically collapses within two to three years. Varroa is one of the factors most strongly linked to colony collapse disorder (CCD) worldwide — the sudden abandonment of a hive by its adult workers — though CCD has no single confirmed cause and is far more a global and Western-honeybee phenomenon than a documented mass event in India. India’s own clearest signals are TSBV and Varroa, plus scattered reports such as declines of the giant rock bee Apis dorsata in the Nilgiri hills.
The threats at a glance — and what helps
| Threat | Impact on bees | What helps |
|---|---|---|
| Neonicotinoid pesticides | Lethal at high dose; sub-lethally impairs navigation, immunity, foraging and sleep | Chemical-free forage zones, native-bee keeping, pressure to cut and target sprays |
| Forage & habitat loss | Diverse season-long food disappears; colonies weaken and starve | Protecting hedgerows, wild margins and mixed forest forage; no monoculture reliance |
| Climate change | Flowering and foraging fall out of sync; nectar scarce; storms damage hives | Keeping locally adapted native bees; diverse forage that buffers timing shifts |
| Thai sacbrood virus | Devastates Apis cerana; wiped out ~90% of South India’s colonies in 1991–92 | Hygienic hive management, resistant stock, prompt removal of infected brood |
| Varroa mite | Parasitises Apis mellifera, spreads deformed wing virus; collapse in 2–3 years untreated | Regular monitoring and integrated mite control; not masking it with routine antibiotics |
How ethical beekeepers and brands respond
None of this is hopeless — and the response is not exotic. It is simply good, patient beekeeping done in a way that treats the causes rather than papering over them. Here is what genuinely responsible beekeepers and the brands that source from them actually do:
- Keep native bees. Favouring the locally adapted Apis cerana over flooding a valley with a single imported species keeps colonies more resilient to local climate and disease, and keeps the wider pollinator community diverse.
- Protect diverse, chemical-free forage. A beekeeper who earns from honey has a direct stake in keeping forests, wildflower meadows and hedgerows intact and unsprayed — the single best defence against both pesticide harm and forage loss.
- Manage disease honestly, not chemically. Ethical beekeeping means monitoring for Varroa and brood disease, removing infected brood, and choosing hygienic, resistant stock — rather than masking weak colonies with routine antibiotics that leave residues in honey and solve nothing.
- Refuse the shortcuts that make it worse. No wall-to-wall migratory monoculture hives, no heavy sugar feeding, no routine drugs. Our own approach to this is spelled out in what sustainable beekeeping is.
- Give beekeeping families a reason to protect the land. A hive that earns a fair income turns a farmer into a guardian of the surrounding forest and its bloom — the economic engine behind conservation.
Why this shows up in the jar you choose
All of this comes back to a very ordinary decision: which honey you buy. Honey produced by native bees foraging diverse, chemical-free wild bloom is, by definition, honey from a landscape where these threats are being actively resisted. Choosing it funds the beekeepers protecting forage, cutting chemicals and managing disease responsibly. Mass-market honey squeezed from intensively managed, migratory, monoculture hives — often the ones most exposed to pesticides and mites — does the opposite.
Our Wild Forest Raw Honey comes from native bees foraging the mixed wild bloom of the Himalayan hills, the kind of diverse forage that makes a colony resilient in the first place. If you want to know exactly what to look for on a label, our roundup of the best raw honey brands in India lays it out — and you can see the full range on our complete Pahadi Source collection. Every honest jar is a small vote for keeping India’s bees alive.
Vote for healthy bees with your jar. Our Wild Forest Raw Honey comes from native Himalayan bees foraging diverse, chemical-free wild bloom — raw, unheated, and part of the answer, not the problem.
Shop Pahadi Source Wild Forest Raw Honey → | Browse the full Pahadi Source range
Frequently asked questions
What are the biggest threats to bees in India?
Five stand out: pesticides — especially neonicotinoids like imidacloprid and thiamethoxam; loss of diverse, chemical-free forage as land is intensively farmed; a fast-warming climate that throws flowering and foraging out of sync; and two major diseases and parasites, Thai sacbrood virus (which devastates the native Apis cerana) and the Varroa mite (which attacks the introduced Apis mellifera). These pressures compound each other — a bee weakened by pesticides is more likely to fall to disease.
How do neonicotinoids harm bees?
Neonicotinoids attack the same nerve receptors in a bee’s brain that they target in pest insects. At high doses they kill outright — an Indian study found around 82–88% mortality in Apis cerana at 120 ng per bee. Below the lethal dose they still impair immunity, learning, navigation, foraging and even the bee’s sleep and body clock, so bees get lost or weaken. Colonies exposed to clothianidin in one field study emerged from winter about 24% smaller.
Has India banned neonicotinoids?
No. India proposed banning or restricting 27 pesticides already curbed abroad in May 2020, and the Pesticide Management Bill, 2020 aimed to modernise the rules, but much of this has stalled. Highly bee-toxic neonicotinoids such as imidacloprid, thiamethoxam and clothianidin remain legally sold and widely used in Indian agriculture. It is accurate to say India has proposed reform, not delivered a neonicotinoid ban.
What is Thai sacbrood virus and why does it matter?
Thai sacbrood virus (TSBV) is one of Asia’s most damaging bee diseases, and its main victim is the native Indian honey bee, Apis cerana. It first hit North India in 1978–85 and then caused a catastrophe in South India in 1991–92, destroying an estimated 90% of the region’s colonies — over 250,000 colonies were lost in Tamil Nadu’s Kanyakumari district alone. It can empty an apiary within weeks and resurfaced in Telangana in 2021.
Is colony collapse disorder happening in India?
Colony collapse disorder (CCD) — the sudden abandonment of a hive by its adult workers — is largely a global and Western-honeybee phenomenon with no single confirmed cause. India’s clearest, best-documented threats are Thai sacbrood virus and the Varroa mite, along with scattered reports such as declines of the giant rock bee Apis dorsata in the Nilgiri hills. It is more honest to point to these specific, evidenced pressures than to import the full US CCD narrative.
How do ethical honey brands actually help bees?
By rewarding the practices that address the threats at their root: keeping locally adapted native bees, protecting diverse chemical-free forage that guards against both pesticides and starvation, monitoring and managing disease honestly rather than masking it with routine antibiotics, and refusing intensive migratory monoculture beekeeping. Buying honey from bees foraging wild, unsprayed bloom directly funds beekeepers doing this work — and gives hill families an income reason to protect the land.
By the Pahadi Source Editorial Team · July 2026. Pahadi Source sources raw honey and other authentic products from the Himalayan hill regions of Uttarakhand and beyond. Figures cited draw on peer-reviewed research on neonicotinoid effects on Apis cerana and Apis mellifera, reporting on India’s pesticide regulation from Down to Earth, Mongabay and research literature on Thai sacbrood virus and the Varroa mite, and studies on climate-driven pollinator mismatches in Asia. This article is general information, not agricultural or veterinary advice.
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