There have been no pesticide-related bee kills in Oregon since 2021, according to a new Oregon State University report — marking a win from more than a decade ago when the state was experiencing an alarming number of dead bees related to pesticides.
The inaugural 140-page “Bees of Oregon: 2025” report builds on years of work from university experts, state agencies and environmental advocates tasked by the Oregon Legislature in 2014 with finding ways to improve bee health and habitat.
The report summarizes major steps the state has taken to improve bee health. It also includes a look at bee biodiversity and guidance for Oregonians to support the pollinators whose services to the state’s crops are worth $600 million annually.
After 25,000 bees in 2013 died in a Target parking lot in Wilsonville following exposure to pesticides, the Legislature established the Task Force on Pollinator Health to address increasing reports of bee deaths associated with pesticides, charging Oregon State University scientists with developing statewide educational materials aimed at reducing pesticide exposure, improving bee habitat and slowing the spread of invasive bees, pests and diseases impacting bees.
The first quarter of the report highlights the Oregon Bee Project, an initiative by those stakeholders to educate the public on bee health.
Since 2018, the bee project has trained more than 12,000 pesticide applicators on pesticide labels, provided K-12 youth with educational booklets about Oregon bees and established bee protection protocols for land managers growing critical state crops such as clover seed, blueberries and western vegetable seeds.
The bee project has also bolstered training on bee health and partnered with experts at Oregon State to train the public about pollinator landscaping. In 2023, it spearheaded the creation of the pollinator paradise license plate to fund a bee taxonomist and honey bee disease diagnostic positions at Oregon State.
The pollinator license plate, which requires a $40 surcharge at car registration, has generated more than $800,000 to support these positions since its launch, but the project faces a major funding gap after federal funding for it ended in the spring.
The remaining pages outline the Oregon Bee Atlas, a program of the Oregon Bee Project that consists of a massive state bee inventory that tracks 567 bee species across each of the state’s ecoregions — including some of the state’s rarest bees.
“One of the reasons we have several hundreds of species of wild bees in Oregon is because they have really specialized relationships with our native flora and some of our bees only visit one kind of plant,” said Lincoln Best, an OSU faculty research assistant and taxonomist for the Oregon Bee Atlas project.
The atlas, compiled by volunteers, is the largest contemporary state bee inventory in North America, according to the report.
“Oregon has built one of the strongest bee survey and education networks in the country,” said Andony Melathopoulos, a pollinator expert at OSU’s Extension Service. “The public value is that we can now give people better information for protecting bees, improving habitat and making informed decisions in every part of the state.”
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