How Many Hives for Almond Pollination?

We've been watching the almonds budding and blossoming since late January.

They're in full bloom now, but a little ragged by the recent rain.

California has some 750,000 acres of almonds, and it takes two hives per acre to pollinate them.

Since California doesn't have that many bees, beekeepers from all over the country--from Florida to South Dakota to Washington state--truck in the little agricultural workers.

We asked Extension Apiculturist Eric Mussen of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, just how many California-based hives are in the state's almond orchards. That is, how many are "residents" and how many are "migratory."

Being a honey bee guru--after all, he's been with the department since 1976--Mussen knew the answer.

"About 500,000 hives of the 2.6 million hives now pollinating California's almond orchards live here," he said.

As we checked out a spectacular almond orchard on Pitt School Road, Dixon, we stopped to ponder the numbers: 750,000 acres of almonds (and increasing yearly) and 2.6 million hives for pollination services. The bees forage within four miles from their colony, or within a 50-mile radius, Mussen says.

In the almond orchards, they don't have far to go.

California is known as the "The Golden State," but this time of year, it's never been so true. The "gold" is the pollen that the bees are transferring from blossom to blossom  in the almond orchards.