The bar charts illustrate the number of honeybee colonies in millions and their production in the United States between 1970 and 2010.
In the first graph, it is evident that the number of colonies experienced a decrease over the time period given. The number started at four million colonies in 1970 and increased by 4.5 million during the following decade. Since 1980, honeybee numbers have begun to decrease by one million every decade, before finishing around two million in the final year.
The US honey production, on the other hand, saw its numbers fluctuate over the years. In the beginning of the year, its productions were the highest ones, at 130,000 tons. From 1970 to 1980, the number of tons of honey production dropped to 110,000. However, after this period, there was a slight increase of 10,000 tons, before it went down again substantially until 2010, to the lowest number at 70,000 tons.
Overall, the relation of honeybee colonies and their productions was not always linear. Both experienced a decrease over the period, but when related to honey production, it was a time when the productions followed an opposite line to the number of colonies, especially during the 20 years after 1970. It seems that, in these years, the productions were disproportionately higher compared to their numbers.