The magic of RSS delivers news to me that I used to only get by sitting in the local diner in smalltown USA reading the local paper. But we still never know how long the online news links will last, so I’m copying this little story for the record about another “sideline” beekeeper and his need for California almond contracts. If beekeepers were to receive government subsidies, as may happen with this recent “stimulus” bill, I wonder how many beekeepers would still haul their bees all around the country for pollination services. I wonder… if they could stay at home with the reassurance of government checks (as Farm Bill subsidies provide to other agricultural activities), if California would be forced to evolve its local hive capacity to the point of keeping the migratory pollination services for the almond crop LOCAL. What would our pollinator landscape look like if we invested in local capacity building of beekeepers and pollinator maintenance? Would we still have diesel semi trucks hauling bees imported from Australia and, uh, Wyoming, USA? With peak oil now an obvious reality, it is not sustainable to rely on a struggling trucker community to bring bees everywhere? I know, I know, there isn’t enough bloom and habitat to sustain bees in many places… Well, let’s imagine a different reality. CHANGE. PLANT. SOW. -DNR

Ranchester beekeeper rents pollinators to California almond growers

By JUDY HAGEROTT
Star-Tribune correspondent
Casper Star-Tribune Online, WY - Feb 2, 2009

Monday, February 2, 2009 7:03 PM MST
RANCHESTER — Clifford Reed remembers looking over the sweet clover-covered hills near Ranchester last spring and thinking, “This should be a great year for honey.”

A strong dose of reality hit Reed once mites were discovered in his bee colonies.

“I didn’t treat for mites and it cost me,” the owner of Tongue River Honey said.

He won’t make the same mistake this year.

“I had to pull off 320 dead colonies,” Reed said. “With 25,000 to 30,000 bees per hive, that’s a lot of dead bees.

“Once mites reach a certain threshold in a colony of bees, the bees just take off for greener pastures. For those bees that remain, if they catch a virus from the mites, the bee offspring turn into runty, pitiful bees with a short lifespan.”

The timing was terrible. Last year, honey prices rose from 95 cents to $1.40 a pound wholesale. Reed’s year-end honey crop was 27,000 pounds less than his 2007 crop.

That wasn’t the only loss.

This spring, Reed will have to buy $18,000 worth of bees to replace the pollinators he lost.

But all was not lost.

Reed rents his bee colonies to California almond growers during Wyoming’s winter months.

In 1976, the University of California-Berkeley conducted a study and found that adding two to three bee colonies per acre increased the almond production 1,000 percent.

Reed shipped 1,100 colonies a few weeks ago to the California almond groves. He earns a $150 pollination fee per colony for six weeks’ work.”There are not enough beekeepers in California to handle the demand.

“In fact, so dependent on the bees are the almond producers that crop insurers will not insure almond crops unless landowners can prove they have rented bees,” Reed said.

Reed has been renting his bees for nine years.

“It’s become quite lucrative,” he said. “They have to have the bees. If not for the pollination fee, 60 to 80 percent of Wyoming’s honey producers would be out of business.”

Reed’s great-grandfather started Tongue River Honey in 1918. Beekeeping was a thriving industry during Revolutionary War times when beeswax was used as currency or bartered with for domestic goods and food.

With all that buzz, bees are considered to be among the most intelligent insects. They even tell each other where to find the best flowers by doing a little dance for each other.

While Reed keeps as busy as his bees, beekeeping can be a challenge.

“The physical labor is physically challenging,” he said. “When pulling honey during the extracting season, we physically move 20,000 pounds of honey and equipment every day.”

Reed will sell his honey to anyone who comes to his honey house for $1.60 a pound — if they bring their own container.

“Honey isn’t our focus anymore,” he said. “It’s a sideline. Our focus is on having good, strong colonies of bees for the almond growers. That”s where the money’s at.”

PDF Sample Pollination Contract