ELAP for Beekeepers: The Records a Colony-Loss Claim Needs

The Short Answer

ELAP — the Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honeybees and Farm-Raised Fish Program — pays eligible beekeepers for colony, hive and feed losses from an eligible adverse weather event or loss condition, Colony Collapse Disorder included. The claim itself depends on documentation you had to have been keeping before the loss happened: an FSA-recognized hive inventory at the start of the year, and again immediately before and after the event. A notebook that only says "lost some hives in the freeze" doesn't clear that bar. A dated count, hive by hive, does.

We're software engineers, not FSA caseworkers. This post explains what the program covers and what it asks you to document, sourced from FSA's own materials. Your local FSA service center has the final word on your claim.

What ELAP Actually Covers

ELAP is a disaster-assistance program run by USDA's Farm Service Agency, separate from private apiary insurance. For honeybees, it covers losses of colonies, hives and purchased or harvested feed that are the direct result of an eligible adverse weather or loss condition, in the county where the loss occurred, for a producer with an interest and risk in the colonies as part of a farming operation. That last part matters: FSA's fact sheet requires an interest and risk in colonies kept for producing honey, pollination or breeding "for commercial use as part of a farming operation." A backyard hive kept purely as a hobby doesn't fit that; whether a smaller sideline operation does is a question for your FSA service center.

Eligible loss conditions include Colony Collapse Disorder, earthquake, wildfire, flood, hurricane, tornado, excessive wind, lightning, tidal surge, volcanic eruption, and eligible extreme cold, sustained cold or winter storm for colony losses. Early fall frost, drought, excessive rain and late spring frost are eligible only for the additional-feed-purchase category, not colony loss itself.

What FSA Will Ask You to Document

This is the part a records system actually helps with:

None of this asks for anything exotic. It asks for the same three things every source on the topic repeats: a running count, kept current, with dates. The Center for Rural Affairs' beekeeper fact sheet puts it plainly — keep receipts for bees and feed, keep your hive numbers on record, and register any change in hive count with FSA as it happens rather than reconstructing it later.

What ELAP Actually Pays (2024 Program Year Figures)

FSA sets the average fair market values for each program year, so treat the numbers below as an example of how the payment is calculated, not this year's figures — confirm the current ones at fsa.usda.gov/ELAP before you file.

One change from 2026 on: the normal-mortality rate is no longer set year by year. Starting with the 2026 program year, the Working Families Tax Cuts Act fixes it at 15%, down from the 24.2% in the 2024 table below — so for a 2026 loss, colonies lost beyond 15% of inventory are what count.

A person or legal entity with an adjusted gross income over $900,000 is not eligible for ELAP payments, and the 2018 Farm Bill removed honeybee ELAP from the combined payment cap that used to apply alongside the Livestock Forage Disaster Program.

Deadlines: File the Notice, Then the Application

FSA's ELAP program page lists a single deadline for honeybee losses: both the notice of loss and the application for payment are due by March 1 after the program year in which the loss occurred. A loss during the 2026 program year (January 1 – December 31, 2026) needs both filed by March 1, 2027. (Older fact sheets gave a January 30 date; go by the current page.)

Don't treat that date as a reason to wait. File the notice of loss as soon as the loss is apparent, while your before-and-after counts are still fresh and easy to document, at the local FSA service center that holds your farm records (or the service center in the county where the loss happened, if that's different). The deadline is a backstop, not a target.

Colony Collapse Disorder Is Its Own Case

CCD claims carry an extra bar the other conditions don't: FSA asks for a producer certification that the loss matched at least 3 of the 5 recognized CCD symptoms, plus proof that you were following normal best management practices beforehand — proper nutrition, preventive varroa and disease treatment, and hive equipment maintenance. A treatment log with dates and products, kept for reasons that have nothing to do with disaster assistance, is exactly the evidence that certification asks for.

What to Keep Track of Before You Ever Need It

The pattern across every ELAP source, FSA's own fact sheet included, is the same: the documentation that makes a claim possible is documentation you were already keeping for the operation, not something you assemble after the loss.

• A hive/colony count you can date, not just a current total. If your only record is "I have about 40 hives," you have no beginning-of-year figure to compare a post-loss count against. A beekeeping logbook built around per-hive IDs makes that count easy to take — write it down on January 1 and again whenever it changes.
• Inspection dates, hive by hive, so a before-and-after window around any single event is something you can point to instead of reconstructing.
• Treatment records with dates and products — the same varroa treatment record that answers "did I treat before winter" is the record a CCD certification asks for.
• Purchase receipts for bees and feed, kept somewhere you can actually find them, not in a shoebox.
• Don't delete a dead-out. Mark the hive dead and note the date and cause instead, so its history from before the loss stays in your records.
• A note when your hive count changes, up or down, close to when it happens — worth centralizing the same way if more than one person works the yard; see our notes on running a shared apiary.

The HiveSense Angle

None of this requires a beekeeping app — beekeepers filed ELAP claims for years on paper. What a records app changes is whether the count exists at all when you need it. In HiveSense, every hive belongs to an apiary with an inspection history, and every inspection is dated the day you're standing at the hive, offline if the yard has no signal. On any paid plan, exporting your inspections, treatments and harvests as CSV or PDF, organized by apiary and hive, takes a few taps in Settings — useful for a wholesale buyer asking about your operation, and just as useful as the dated before-and-after trail an ELAP claim leans on. The export doesn't include a colony-count column, so keep your beginning-of-year and post-loss counts as notes or on FSA's forms. And when a colony dies, set that hive's status to Dead rather than deleting it: deleted hives drop out of the export, and their inspection history goes with them. It doesn't file the claim, and it isn't a substitute for what your local FSA office tells you to submit. It just means the dated record was already there when you needed it. See our commercial beekeeping software page for the multi-apiary and team side of that, or start with the free tier if it's one yard.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is ELAP for beekeepers?

ELAP (Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honeybees and Farm-Raised Fish Program) is a USDA Farm Service Agency disaster program that pays eligible beekeepers for colony, hive and feed losses caused by an eligible adverse weather or loss condition, including Colony Collapse Disorder for colony losses. It is administered through your local FSA service center, not an insurance company.

How much does ELAP pay for a lost colony?

For the 2024 program year, FSA set the average fair market value at $129 per colony and $230 per hive, with payments covering at least 75 percent of that value (90 percent for producers who certify as socially disadvantaged, limited resource, beginning or veteran farmers or ranchers) for losses beyond a set normal-mortality rate, which FSA put at 24.2 percent for 2024. Starting with the 2026 program year, the Working Families Tax Cuts Act fixes that normal-mortality rate at 15 percent, so fewer of your losses are written off as normal. Fair market values are still set per program year, so check the current figures at fsa.usda.gov/ELAP before you file.

What documentation does ELAP require for a colony loss?

Proof of hive inventory at the start of the program year and inventory immediately before and immediately after the loss event. If you were paid for a honeybee colony or hive loss in either of the prior two years, FSA also asks for documentation showing how your current inventory was acquired. For a Colony Collapse Disorder claim specifically, you certify that the loss matched at least 3 of the 5 recognized CCD symptoms and show that you were following normal best management practices beforehand.

When do I have to file an ELAP notice of loss?

FSA's ELAP page lists the final date to file both the notice of loss and the payment application as March 1 after the program year in which the loss occurred — so a 2026 loss must be filed by March 1, 2027. Don't wait for that deadline: file as soon as the loss is apparent, and confirm the current deadline with your local FSA office.

Does keeping app records actually help with an ELAP claim?

It helps with the part every source stresses: showing FSA a dated inventory before and after the loss, plus evidence of normal management. Dated inspections logged against each hive, plus a treatment log, give you most of that before-and-after trail without reconstructing it from memory — though the colony count itself is still yours to write down. It is not a substitute for FSA's own forms, and no beekeeping app files the claim for you — you still take your records to the local FSA service center.

Sources

Figures and program rules checked 2026-09-24; deadline and 2026 normal-mortality rate re-checked against FSA's ELAP page 2026-09-28.

• FSA: Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honeybees, and Farm-Raised Fish (ELAP) program page
• FSA ELAP Honeybee Assistance fact sheet, April 2024
• Center for Rural Affairs: What Beekeepers Need to Know About the Emergency Livestock Assistance Program
• Oklahoma State University Extension: Disaster Assistance for Honeybee Producers