By GOSIA WOZNIACKA Associated Press
TURLOCK, Calif. February 16, 2013 (AP)
In an almond orchard in California's Central Valley, bee inspector Neil
Trent pried open a buzzing hive and pulled out a frame to see if it was
at least two-thirds covered with bees.
Trent has hopped from orchard to orchard this month, making sure enough
bees were in each hive provided by beekeepers. Not enough bees covering a
frame indicates an unhealthy hive — and fewer working bees to pollinate
the almond bloom, which starts next week across hundreds of thousands
of acres stretching from Red Bluff to Bakersfield.
"The bloom will come and go quickly," said Trent, who works for the
Bakersfield-based bee broker Scientific Ag Co. "The question is: Will
the almond seeds get set? It depends if you have enough of a workforce
of bees."
That has growers concerned as nomadic beekeepers from across the country
converge on the state with their semi-trucks, delivering billions of
bees to the orchards for the annual pollination. Most almond trees
depend on bees to transfer pollen from the flower of one tree variety to
the flower of another variety before fertilization, which leads to the
development of seeds.
It's a daunting task: California's orchards provide about 80 percent of
the global almond supply. And with almond acreage increasing steadily in
recent years, the bees must now pollinate 760,000 acres of trees. The
number of bees needed is expected to increase as almond demand grows and
orchards continue to expand.
Already, more than half of the country's honeybees are brought to
California at the end of February for almond pollination, which requires
about 1.5 million hives from out of state, and another 500,000 from
elsewhere in the state. Honeybees are preferred for commercial-scale
pollination, because they are social, build larger colonies than other
bees, and their hives can easily be moved.
Bee brokers, beekeepers and almond growers around the state say there's a
shortage of healthy honeybees for this year's pollination, especially
after colony collapse disorder took a higher toll this winter. The
disorder, in which honey bees suddenly disappear or die, wipes out
thousands of colonies each year.
The shortage has some growers scrambling for bees — even sub-performers —
as trees are about to bloom, driving up bee prices again this year, to
an all-time high of more than $200 per colony.
"There's definitely a shortage of strong bee colonies," said Joe
Traynor, owner of Scientific Ag, which connects growers with beekeepers.
"There is a problem covering all the acres of almonds in the state."
Since it was recognized in 2006, colony collapse disorder has destroyed
colonies at a rate of about 30 percent a year, according to the U.S.
Department of Agriculture. Before that, losses were about 15 percent a
year from pests and diseases. No one has determined its cause, but most
researchers point to a combination of factors, including pesticide
contamination, poor nutrition and bee diseases.
This year, experts say, the die-off has been as high as 40 to 50 percent for some beekeepers.
"We have smaller populations in the hives and higher winter losses,"
said Eric Mussen, a bee specialist at the entomology department of
University of California, Davis. "Bees across the country are not in as
good a shape as last year. When you stress them far enough, the bees
just give in."
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