-Posted by Isaac

As far as cash value for its farm products, the state of California leads the entire nation in agriculture.

And which California crop tops all others in revenue?

You guessed it…

I had the good fortune to be a temporary eyewitness. Cortez Growers owned the holding yard where our bees are situated, and I watched the comings and goings right across the road in this large almond processing facility.

Denise (our pollination broker) told me that every one of those stacked wooded boxes gets filled with almonds. They leave weekly, put on giant container ships in the San Fransisco Bay, destined for ports around the world. Billions in revenue.

About every hour I would hear a grinding roar and see a big cloud of dust. They were taking the hulls off the almonds. These end up on a huge pile, probably 50’ high, at least a football field in length. They are eventually sold as a feed supplement. Mostly to dairies, ironically.

Ironic, because the dairy industry has taken quite a hit with the increasing demand for almond milk.

Demand for almonds in general has exploded over the last two decades. And California services about 80% of the world’s market. The industry is booming. And here’s the thing— they need bees!

Our bees, (and right now about 100,000 other hives) are located on the outskirts of the little town of Turlock.

Almond central.

Denise tells me that only two things could possibly slow the almond explosion— lack of water, and lack of bees. Neither of those seems to be a hinderance at the moment. Around town, driving in any direction, you go through miles and miles of orchards. Many are young— planted only a few years ago, they’re just now ready to produce. They’ll need bees for the next two decades.

I think Denise said, this year in the Central Valley, about 100,000 acres of young new orchards need pollinated. Next year, it’s around 300,000!

“Where are we going to find all those bees??”

What I’m trying to say is, there’s a huge market for pollinators out there. And it’s growing! This giant, multibillion dollar almond industry has suddenly and unexpectedly found itself reliant on the expertise of a small rag-tag group of agricultural misfits— migratory beekeepers.

Because of that, we’re treated like rock stars. (In my experience.) Namely, we’re paid like rock stars, but that’s not all. It seems to me that the almond folks are trying hard to appease beekeepers in other ways. They plant their orchard floors with bee forage. They provide holding yards and equipment. They throw a ton of money toward honey bee research, bee nutrition, beekeeper education, public awareness, government involvement, and so on. In fact, the biggest reason the public knows anything about the recent plight of the honey bee is because the almond industry sounded the alarm.

I forgot to link that Dan Rather Buzzkill episode last week. (For those of you on the mailing list.) If you watch any of that, you’ll see the level of concern and trepidation over bee health. It’s not the almond industry causing the decline of the bees. They are one of the key players in trying to prevent it!

And in the last decade since the appearance of colony collapse disorder (CCD), they’ve made some real strides. Not to mention, the nature of the business itself… the biggest benefit of all to bees and beekeepers…

Endless pollen in mid February. I repeat— an enormous pollen flow in February!

This is why the bees come home looking like this:

Kirk Stoller, a northern Ohio commercial beekeeper, loves to show off his post-almond colonies. The busting hives pictured above looked like that on April 2nd. In Ohio! (While our puny hives were still recovering from winter.) He posts these photos on beekeeper social media every spring. Making all of us mad.

It sure doesn’t seem to fit the narrative, does it? You know, that panicky, dystopia… that the bees are dying… that we’re all going to starve to death without them… that the annual almond pollination is to blame.

But, but, but… The Guardian article said almond pollination is ‘Like sending bees to war’… What gives?

What gives, is a typical half-truth media story whipping people into a frenzy. That article was shared our direction a couple more times this week. Jayne responded to one of them. (In a more friendly and concise manner than me… I was the guy who “Liked” it.)

The thing about that article (and many like it), is that it tells the complete truth for only part of the story. Yes, the bees are out there in a mono-crop environment. And yes, the ag chemicals are bad for insects… But NO, the short stint in the blooming California orchards is NOT the reason for honey bee decline.

They sort of brush over all the ‘war zone’ environments where the bees spend their other 10 months a year.

It’s a war zone right here!

I was thinking about all this while feeding my levee hives this week. For about five months these girls sit in the cold with zero pollen coming in. Then when things finally start blooming, the real worries begin. I have a cross-your-fingers list.

Cross your fingers that:

1. The farmer didn’t spray a fall ‘burn down’, which would eliminate any chance of some spring ground cover forage. (purple deadnettle, hen bit, etc…)

2. The farmer plants on a calm, cloudy day. This would minimize the bee kill due to drift of pesticide-laced planting dust.

3. The farmer applies the pre-emergent herbicide (usually twice) when it’s windless. This would keep the weed killer in the field where it belongs and not killing bee forage in the ditches and tree lines.

4. The farmer doesn’t use dicamba, an extremely volatile substitute for Roundup resistant weeds. Dicamba will drift for hundreds of feet with only the slightest breeze.

5. The mid-summer fungicide application won’t set the bees back more than a single brood cycle.

6. The farmer doesn’t feel the need to add an insecticide to the fungicide tank mix.

7. The bees can find something besides corn pollen in July and August. (Trace amounts of neonic pesticides in corn pollen.)

8. Maybe, just maybe a few stands of ragweed manage to survive in the ditches and corners of the field. (Giving the bees a slightly more diverse fall diet.)

9. The farmer doesn’t kick my bees the hell off his land. (When he finds out I’m an environmentalist wacko.)

That’s a long growing season of crossing my fingers. Right here in Ohio! If, by some miracle, we get the bees to the winter in good shape, it looks to me like the California almonds are more of a sanctuary than a ‘war zone’.

You know I’m kidding about that last one on the list— the environmentalist ideal. Farmers are environmentalists. To a certain extent, anyway. The farmers I know are reasonable and conscientious. Stewards of the land. It’s just that they’re caught up in this dog-eat-dog, commodity market driven, bottom dollar, bottomline, chemically dependent, subsidy dependent food system. It sucks. The farmers have to stay in business. (Or the business itself needs to change… which it won’t, until we all wise up with our food choices.)

Here’s the rub— it’s what we’ve got almost everywhere— the modern food system, like it or not. Keeping insects alive and healthy within this system is not an easy thing to do. But there are places where pollinators are more appreciated.

And for a couple months in the winter, California is one of those places.

It’s nice to be someplace you’re appreciated.