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Organic beekeeping can support healthy and productive honey bee colonies, and a new study led by researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences has found that adopting organic honey bee colony management is not only profitable, but in some cases, it can be even more profitable than conventional management.

The study, in the Journal of Economic Entomology, found that beekeepers adhering to organic management standards earn profits comparable to those of beekeepers who use conventional management practices. The United States does not offer official organic certification for honey in the continental U.S., even if organic management standards are followed, because the standards require any crops or plants within 1.8 miles of hives be free of synthetic chemicals and that cannot be guaranteed in this geographic area.

The researchers also found that if beekeepers use organic management practices over time, they can even produce 50% more honey than when following conventional management practices.

Margarita López-Uribe, Lorenzo L. Langstroth Early Career Professor in the College of Agricultural Sciences, said she hopes the findings will incentivize beekeepers to consider organic management practices as an option for their operations.

"Our research demonstrates that you can manage your colonies following organic standards and don't need to use synthetic pesticides to keep colonies healthy," she said. "It also provides evidence-based recommendations for what beekeepers can do to avoid these synthetic pesticides."

Organic beekeeping comes with benefits, the researchers said. For example, products coming from the colonies will have lower amounts of pesticides, and the beekeepers themselves have less direct exposure to pesticides.

"Avoiding the use of synthetic miticides circumvents the impacts of miticide-resistant parasitic mites, which were a major factor in overwintering colony losses across the country during the 2024–25 winter," added Robyn Underwood, Penn State Extension apiculture educator and a co-author on the paper.

But despite these benefits, López-Uribe said there are many barriers to the practice being more widespread, including confusion about what organic beekeeping actually means.

"Organic beekeeping is not chemical-free beekeeping, and it does not mean that you do not control any of the pests that you have in the colony," she said. "On the contrary, it involves having a deep care for the welfare of the colony in such a way that if—for example—Varroa mite levels go above a certain threshold, you take an active role in controlling them."

A previous study by the researchers found that beekeepers can manage healthy and strong honey bee colonies using organic practices. With the current study, the team wanted to examine whether organic beekeeping management practices could be profitable, too.

The researchers compared three honey bee colony management systems—conventional, chemical-free and organic—over three years.

In the chemical-free approach, the beekeepers avoided any products not derived from bees, which means Varroa mites—a parasite that causes significant damage to bee colonies—are not controlled by miticides. Instead, beekeepers relied on stocking their colonies with mite-resistant bees or using nonchemical ways to control them.

While the organic approach prohibited synthetic pesticides, beekeepers could use organic acids, essential oils and integrated pest management approaches following the National Organic Program's recommendations.

For their experiment, the researchers established multiple colonies utilizing each management system on four certified organic farms across Pennsylvania. Over the next three years, they visited each colony every few weeks to monitor the bees. The researchers also tracked the revenue, profits and colony survival across the different system operations.

The researchers found that the chemical-free management system resulted in economic losses, while operations using the conventional or organic system generated revenue. Honey production and bee production were highest in the organic and conventional management systems, resulting in profits that were 14 and 11 times higher, respectively, than in the chemical-free management system.

By the third year, honey production was 50% higher in operations using an organic management system than in operations using a conventional management system.

López-Uribe said the findings suggest that mite control is critical for the profitability of bee colonies, especially since 2025 has been the worst year on record for honey bee colony losses in the U.S. She added that the study shows that beekeepers can follow organic beekeeping practices while still controlling these harmful pests.

The researchers said that in the future, additional studies could help in creating more specific recommendations for management practices that will help maximize profits for small and mid-size beekeeping operations.

Timothy Kelsey, professor of agricultural economics at Penn State, and Nash Turley, postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Entomology at Penn State, were also co-authors on this paper.