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Crop pollination profile 2025 season - benchmark fees
Fee#4

Squash

Region 1 - 2025 season - #4 of 29 by fee

Benchmark pollination fee$88/ colony

Squash has a public USDA/NASS benchmark in Region 1; one pollination contract is 0.6x a national honey-season value per colony.

Fee / colony$88+20%
Fee / acre$46-47%
Stocking0.94 hives/achives per acre
Implied demand36,511colonies at peak

Source: USDA/NASS Cost of Pollination - public aggregate benchmark.

hivelinks.app/data/crops/squash

Among the 29 pollination crops USDA tracks in this benchmark bundle, Squash ranks #4 by the fee a beekeeper earns per colony. This page keeps its pollination economics, peak bloom demand, growing states, and colony-health context tied to public USDA/NASS aggregate rows.

01

Pollination economics

Squash carries a benchmark pollination fee of $88 per colony, ranking #4 of 29 tracked crops and -40% against a full honey-season baseline of $146.

Pollination fee vs. every tracked crop

Squash is highlighted against the benchmark list, with a dashed honey-season baseline marked in the plot.

direct
Fee / colony$88+20% vs crop average
Fee / acre$46-47% vs crop average
Hives / acre0.94-40% vs crop average
02

Demand and the colony gap

Pollinating squash at scale pulls in 36,511 colonies at peak bloom. The gap is bridged by the local producer-state colony base and migratory beekeepers who follow bloom windows.

Squash pulls in 36,511 colonies

Public crop-demand acres times benchmark stocking rate estimates peak demand against colonies kept in the producer states.

derived
Implied colony demand36,511
Kept in producer states758,293
0.0x local colonies

Peak bloom demand is below the colonies already kept in producer states, so this crop is less dependent on long-haul colony movement.

Pollinated acres39,000public crop demand
Hives / acre0.94benchmark stocking
U.S. colony share1.5%of managed colonies
03

Where it is grown

Squash pollination clusters in producer states. Open any of them for its full honey-and-colony profile, or jump to a neighboring crop.

04

Colony health at bloom

Moving colonies into squash bloom means moving them into the pest pressure reported by its growing states. This section compares those producer-state stressors with the U.S. colony-health baseline.

Pest and stressor pressure at bloom

Producer-state stressor averages are colony-weighted, then compared with the latest national Honey Bee Colonies baseline.

derived
Squash growing statesU.S. baseline
Varroa mites26.3%
Other pests10.3%
Other8.1%
Pesticides7.7%
Diseases4.5%
Unknown3.0%

How this is derived: colony-weighted average of 8 squash producer states with USDA stressor rows for the same reporting period.