For beekeepers, there’s
money in almonds despite colony losses
By Maria Wyllie
Beginning
in November each year, Montana beekeepers load thousands of honeybee hives on
flatbed trucks and migrate to California’s Central Valley for the coming almond
pollination, a major event in commercial beekeeping.
The
Golden State has a virtual monopoly on the crop, producing approximately 80 percent
of the world’s almonds, which require pollination by 1.6 million – more than
half – of America’s bee colonies. This means big business for beekeeping states likes Montana, which ranked fourth in
honey production in 2014 and is home to about 160,000 colonies.
Without
the help of honeybees, we wouldn’t have almonds – a primary reason the insect’s
declining health is raising eyebrows. It’s been a topic of debate since 2006,
when beekeepers started seeing significant colony attrition in the U.S.,
suffering an average annual loss of 32 percent.
Some
beekeepers attribute these fatalities to Colony Collapse Disorder, a phenomenon
occurring when a hive’s worker bees mysteriously disappear, but the queen
remains. However, CCD itself is quite rare, according to Cam Lay, Natural
Resource Program Manager for Montana’s Department of Agriculture.
“Usually
when a hive dies, you can tell why,” says Lay, who inspects apiaries—or
collections of beehives—and issues health certificates allowing companies to
bring their bees into California for pollination services, and then back to
Montana where they’re based.
Instead,
high annual bee losses usually result from a complex variety of factors ranging
from poor bee management and nutrition, to pathogens and agrochemical exposure.
But a definitive cause is up in the air.
“The
real answer is we still don’t know,” said Michelle Flenniken, an assistant
professor at Montana State University’s Department of Plant Sciences and Plant
Pathology. For one study, Flenniken and her team examined the role of pathogens—including
viruses, bacteria, parasites and fungi—on honeybee health before, during, and
after almond pollination.
“You really need to know what pathogens are present before you can correlate any of them with colony loss,” she said.
MSU Department of Plant Sciences and Plant Pathology assistant professor Michelle Flenniken inspects a frame of bees from a colony at a research farm on MSU’s campus in Bozeman. PHOTO COURTESY OF MSU MOUNTAINS AND MINDS/KELLY GORHAM
Despite
these losses and recent reports claiming bees are in dire straits, honeybees are
not facing extinction and our nation’s food supply is not running out. Beekeepers
are actually doing well because, right now, there’s money in bees.
An
almond has two primary needs: water and honeybee pollen. Approximately one
gallon of water is needed to grow a single almond, a problem for California’s
drought-ravaged agricultural landscape. Because honeybees are the only
pollinators, almond growers pay the highest rental fees for their services, consequently
dictating much of what happens in commercial beekeeping.
“All
the commercial guys migrate [to California],” Lay said. “They can’t afford not
to.”
Greg
Fullerton, president of the Montana State Beekeepers Association and owner of
Glacier County Honey in Babb, Montana, says the almond
industry is a central reason why people are running so many hives right now. He
points to poor management practices as a reason for colony losses, and says
some beekeepers are losing colonies because they’re raising more bees than they
can handle.
“It’s like overgrazing cattle,” Fullerton said. “It’s profitable enough now that everyone’s running way more than what I consider their economic threshold.”
According
to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, honeybees, which are considered a
specialty crop at the state and federal level, provide $15 billion annually in
agricultural products including honey and pollination services.
Glacier
County Honey is a small-scale operation, cultivating approximately 1,600 colonies
and working on a hive-to-hive basis rather than running up the numbers. By
comparison, many of the bigger commercial companies are running multiple
thousands of hives but don’t have the resources to adequately manage them,
according to Fullerton.
“I don’t think the bees are completely dying across the country, and we’re going to be without,” he said.
A honeybee pollinates an almond flower in California’s Capay Valley. PHOTO BY KATHY KEATLEY GARVEY
A
second-generation beekeeper, Fullerton says his family saw a mere 2-3 percent
loss of bees in the 1980s and ‘90s. Now he sees 25 percent losses annually – a
decline he believes is a consequence of increased stresses, such as new mites,
pesticides and frequent migration.
Still,
Fullerton doesn’t believe the bees are disappearing anytime soon. He and other apiarists
cut their losses by splitting one colony into two and adding an extra queen. This
is typically done right before almond pollination so the required 1.6 million
colonies are ready to go.
Splitting hives enables beekeepers to meet the soaring demand for almonds, as well as more than 130 other cropspollinated by honeybees such as citrus fruits, alfalfa, and canola oil. The technique has also kept the average number of bee colonies in the U.S. at 2.5 million – a figure that hasn’t changed much since 2006, even when considering the 32 percent average annual loss.
“The
business has continued to thrive,” Fullerton said. “Beekeepers are doing quite
well.”
But
Flenniken says splitting hives to meet demand is a poor method of balancing bee
attrition. “If you think of honeybees like any other agricultural crop, we
would not tolerate a 32 percent annual loss,” she said.
Increasing
losses are also requiring beekeepers to work harder to maintain their hives. This
compromises many of the foods we rely on for a solid, nutritious supply – a
major reason why the Almond Board of California supports ongoing honeybee
research, according to the group’s website.
The 2014 Almond Almanac states that the 2013-14 almond-crop year achieved the highest overall shipments and the second highest production level by almond growers worldwide. The U.S. market set a record for the eighth consecutive year, with shipments up 9 percent over 2013, at 641.8 million pounds.
The $6.4 billion industry couldn’t exist without honeybees, and if demand for almonds – one of the world’s favorite snacks – increases as expected, it remains to be seen if the honeybee supply can keep up, even when splitting hives.
Consequently,
while the bees aren’t likely to disappear, the cost of pollination services
will rise. This means food prices will go up, and you’ll either need to find a
new go-to snack, or pony up for almonds.
Editor’s note: A
version of this article first appeared in the summer 2015 edition of Mountain
Outlaw magazine.