How Much Money Does California Make From Using Bees To Pollinate

The California almond crop is worth $2.2 billion and is estimated to add an additional $21.5 billion to the economy via 104,000 jobs in production, processing, manufacturing, and marketing. Notably, this multibillion-dollar industry is more or less completely reliant on managed dear bees since pollination is required to produce almonds and at that place are almost no wild bees in California almond orchards.

By 1973, the pollination needs of California almonds exceeded what could be serviced past dear bee colonies kept in the state. At offset, beekeepers from neighboring states kicked in and sent a few hives to help pollinate the almonds. Merely demand connected to grow. Currently, an estimated one.5 million hives (~lx% of all colonies in the United States) are moved into the almond growing regions of California to pollinate the well-nigh i million acres (4,000 km²) of nut-bearing trees each February.

This isn't merely a service for almond growers — it's also large concern for beekeepers. The average rental fee paid by almond growers is currently over $160/colony. If you do the math, that means total acquirement received by The states beekeepers providing pollination services to almond is more than $240 1000000 per twelvemonth. So, with all this money passing hands, you'd recollect beekeepers were making a handsome turn a profit doing almond pollination, correct? This is the topic for our xx-5th "Notes from the Lab," where we highlight "The economics of honey bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) management and overwintering strategies for colonies used to pollinate almonds," written by Gloria DeGrandi-Hoffman and colleagues and published in the Periodical of Economic Entomology [toz213 (2019)].

The February flower is a item challenge for almond pollination. That's because winter can exist a difficult time for honey bees in the U.South. It's typically the time of twelvemonth when greatest colony losses occur, and for colonies that are notwithstanding going strong, it's when they're smallest and just beginning to build in most regions of the U.S. Thus, beekeepers who pollinate almond typically gear up their bees in i of two ways.

First, many beekeepers motility their bees to warmer climates in southern states or California, where the bees can forage and rear brood throughout the wintertime. However, there are challenges with this practice. Floral resources tin exist insufficient, then beekeepers oftentimes feed sucrose and/or poly peptide supplements. Though these supplements tin meet some nutritional requirements, they aren't perfect, and malnutrition and increased incidence of affliction can occur. Varroa and its associated viruses can also exacerbate the effects of nutritional stress. And since varroa is a brood parasite that tin can migrate into colonies on foragers, particularly in the autumn, it tin exist a major problem for beekeepers who acquire excess mites in the autumn and maintain breed throughout the wintertime.

Alternatively, many beekeepers put colonies into cold storage facilities in the autumn. While there's a financial cost of renting cold storage space, there are likewise potential advantages to this direction strategy. Colonies put into cold storage after a fall miticide treatment may avoid being re-infested with varroa, and bees amassed inside the hive have greater longevity and require fewer resources. Thus, the total cost of overwintering bees in cold storage may be lower compared to overwintering bees in warmer areas if those warm-area colonies demand supplemental feeding or additional mite treatments, or if common cold storage reduces winter losses.

With these possibilities in listen, DeGrandi-Hoffman and colleagues' written report set out to test which overwintering direction style (if any) was profitable for beekeepers conducting almond pollination. To do this, they beginning moved 95 colonies to Texas afterwards almond pollination, split up and requeened them to make 190 colonies, and fed the new colonies sucrose and a protein supplement (cost = $7,443; see Fig. one).

In June, all colonies were inspected and moved to North Dakota for the dearest flow; a mutual practice amidst many commercial beekeepers. From June until August, the colonies grew and accumulated honey (cost = $813 for supers) and were given a miticide treatment approved for use during the dearest flow (HopGuard 2 – BetaTec Hop Products, Washington, DC; cost = $i,752 including labor, transportation and materials). In August, 12,160 lbs. of love (77 lbs. per hive) were removed at a total price of $two,432 in labor and other extraction expenses. In the year of the written report, unprocessed ….

Source: https://americanbeejournal.com/when-is-pollinating-almond-actually-profitable-for-beekeepers/

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