As I was saying, honey production has remained essentially flat for decades but the "number of colonies" has changed. US honey production in 1950 was 233 million pounds, and in 2000 -- 220.4 million. Another interesting point is that in the 1950s people were warning about "what would happen" if the number of colonies fell. Well, supposedly it fell from 5.6 million to 3.4 million, but the honey production stayed the same, and pollination needs were met.

Estimation of the colony response equation is complicated by two limitations
to the official USDA data. The first is that colony numbers were not
recorded during the years 1982–85, although price and cost data are available.
The second limitation is that when the National Agricultural Statistics
Service (NASS) began again to collect colony data, it changed its method
of data collection. In the official estimates, the number of colonies dropped
dramatically in 1986 by 1 million, from a prior level of approximately 4
million colonies. Conversations with USDA-NASS employees confirm that
changes were made in how the data were collected. Frederic Hoff and Jane
Phillips state that while earlier estimates included colony counts from all
beekeepers, the later years included counts only from those beekeepers who
maintained at least five colonies. 

THE FABLE OF THE BEES REVISITED: CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE U.S. HONEY PROGRAM
Journal of Law and Economics, vol. XLVI (October 2003)

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