Honey prices: supply, shelf and outlook for 2026

Honey prices paid to U.S. beekeepers jumped in 2025. Beekeepers who sold honey retail got $7.15 a pound, 21% more than in 2024, and co-ops and private buyers paid 16% more, according to the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service. The same surveys show less honey coming from fewer hives. This brief sets those numbers beside what shoppers pay and what the USDA expects, for brands that pack or sell honey.

Every chart below is built from published federal data. The sources, with links to the tables behind each line, are at the foot of the page.

Honey prices beekeepers received in 2025

NASS reports the price beekeepers receive three ways: for honey they sell retail themselves, for honey they sell to co-ops and private buyers, and across all sales. All three rose in 2025. The retail price climbed 21% to $7.15 a pound, and the co-op and private price rose 16% to $2.45. The price across all sales rose more than either, 27%, because more of the honey sold went through the pricier retail channel; at 2024's mix it would have risen far less.

The retail price rose in every year on the chart except 2024. The price from co-ops and private buyers peaked in 2022, fell for two years, and even after the 2025 increase it sits below that peak. A pound sold retail now fetches nearly three times as much.

These are prices at the farm, not on the shelf. Of the two, the co-op and private price is closer to what a packer pays a U.S. beekeeper. Packers also buy imported honey, which these figures do not cover.

Less honey from fewer, less productive colonies

U.S. beekeepers produced 115,716,000 pounds of honey in 2025. That is 22% less than in 2017, and the smallest crop on the chart. Production is colonies times yield, and both fell: there were 10% fewer honey-producing colonies than in 2017, and each one made 14% less honey.

Yield has been the less steady of the two. It dropped in 2021, stayed down in 2022, came back almost to its 2017 level in 2023, then slid again. The colony count rose in 2018, drifted down to 2022, fell in 2023, won back some of that in 2024, and in 2025 had its biggest one-year drop on the chart.

So a smaller crop and a higher price arrived in the same year. Whether the 2026 crop recovers is the first thing a honey buyer will want to know, and NASS publishes it each spring.

Colony losses each quarter

NASS also counts the share of colonies lost in each quarter. Losses are usually at or near their highest in the first quarter, over winter. In the first quarter of 2026 beekeepers lost 16% of their colonies, among the heaviest quarterly losses since 2017.

Losses that size, quarter after quarter, add up to far more than the yearly count of honey-producing colonies fell, though the two NASS surveys count colonies differently. How are beekeepers replacing what they lose, and what does that cost them?

Honey on the shelf

The Consumer Price Index has no line for honey alone. The closest is "other sweets", a group that includes honey but is not only honey. Since January 2020 it has risen 27%, a little less than food at home as a whole at 32%. Sugar and sugar substitutes rose 43% over the same months, well ahead of both.

In the year to August 2026, other sweets rose just 1.7%. Set that beside the farm prices and the picture depends on the window. Against 2024, co-ops and private buyers paid 16% more in 2025 while the shelf barely moved. Against 2022, the co-op price is still lower and the shelf is higher. Which of those matches what you actually paid for honey is the question to settle before your next retailer meeting.

What the USDA expects

The USDA Economic Research Service forecasts sugar and sweets prices to rise 6.6% in 2026, well above its 2.4% forecast for all food at home. The group includes candy as well as sugar and honey, and so far in 2026 the shelf lines above show no rise like that for sugar or for the group that includes honey, so the forecast says more about the aisle than about honey. For 2027 the forecast range runs from a fall to a rise bigger than the 2026 forecast.

What's next for pantry brands

If you pack or sell honey, the first number to check is your own cost against the shelf. Beekeepers' prices rose sharply in 2025 while the shelf index barely moved. If what you pay followed the 2025 farm price up, you may have a case to take to your retailers; if you bought on contracts set when prices were lower, you may not. Do not lean on the USDA's sweets forecast to make it: honey's part of the aisle is not where that rise is showing up.

Supply comes second. The 2025 crop was the smallest on the chart, and the first quarter of 2026 was hard on colonies. If honey stays expensive, which of your products can carry the cost, and which would sell better in a different jar size or at a different price?

Last, check who is still buying. Your retailer and syndicated data can show whether honey shoppers are moving to private label or to smaller jars, and where that started.

Scout reads the retailer portals and syndicated feeds these questions need. To see what the numbers look like for your own brand, ask below.