A small Almond video

[TwT]

Bees and Almonds: Productive Business Partners

[Shawn]

Nice video thanks TwT.

[wayne]

Many thanks. Never having seen an almond grove I had the empression that  the trees looked more like walnuts or Hickory nuts, than chestnuts. In eye opening look for sure.

[Tom Cannon]

Thanks TwT,
That was very informative. The pollinators are feeding to stimulate a early healthy hive. What would happen if the weather did not copperate and the blossoms where not there.
Tom

[treebee]

Thanks alot TwT for the video. As a backyard newbee with just two hives I found that very interesting.Hearing the $150 a hive price is enough to get a guy thinking the bees should be a breeze, but after kibitzing on the forum and listening to the pros and cons I'll bet It's not all rosey in the orchards. John (A former californian.)

[David LaFerney]

Interesting video.  Thanks.  I doubt if that "as much as $150.00 per hive" is as much as it sounds like.  When you think of the expense of building them up so early, then trucking to California, and that almond honey is bitter (?) it really doesn't sound all that great to me.   Like everything else - if it was a get rich quick scheme everyone would do it, and then it wouldn't be.

[TwT]

Interesting video.  Thanks.  I doubt if that "as much as $150.00 per hive" is as much as it sounds like.  When you think of the expense of building them up so early, then trucking to California, and that almond honey is bitter (?) it really doesn't sound all that great to me.   Like everything else - if it was a get rich quick scheme everyone would do it, and then it wouldn't be.

You are right in a way David, from 2004 to 2006, the price of honeybees to pollinate California almonds has jumped from about $54 per colony to about $136 per colony and in 2007 price was $140-$190 a hive. last year (2008) a bunch from out of state went there with no set contracts trying to make the big bucks and a bunch ended up from what I have heard taking contracts for $90-$100 a hive just trying to get their money back for the trip over there, I heard some went under, it ended up driving the price down this year, I am hearing price is still around $135-$145 average, one beekeeper from the east cost said after trucking cost and feeding plus broker fee's he ended up making $105 a hive last year profit, think his hives were set $152 a hive, so it ended up costing him $47 dollars a hive to send and be taken care of by the broker to the almonds last year, see he just loads them here and doesn't see them again until they get shipped back to him, he said his hives come back big and healthy.

here a article on  Bee-conomics and the Leap in Pollination Fees
http://aic.ucdavis.edu/research/bee-conomics-1.pdf

[David LaFerney]

it ended up costing him $47 dollars a hive to send and be taken care of by the broker to the almonds last year, see he just loads them here and doesn't see them again until they get shipped back to him, he said his hives come back big and healthy.

here a article on  Bee-conomics and the Leap in Pollination Fees
http://aic.ucdavis.edu/research/bee-conomics-1.pdf

That made it sound better than I would have really thought, but then I read the article and now it seems that for a lot of those bees the pollination contract is almost all of the income that they will generate all year long - which is probably what would happen to me if I did something like that.  It seems like it would sweeten the deal for the bee keepers if the ground cover in the almond groves was clover or something so that they could get a honey crop before moving the bees out. Also if they could develop a market for the almond honey so that it would be more valuable - maybe as a sweetener in processed foods.   

I'm sure smarter people than me have thought about this.  Trucking bees back and forth from Georgia every year just doesn't sound like a very sustainable system to me though.  Interesting how bees used in California that don't produce a honey crop lower the value of honey all over the country.

[Scadsobees]

It seems like it would sweeten the deal for the bee keepers if the ground cover in the almond groves was clover or something so that they could get a honey crop before moving the bees out.

Would be nice, but then all the bees would be on the ground, not in the trees where they are needed!   I'm not sure, but that early I don't think that there's a whole lot else blooming, not to mention that they have more bees in there than they do nectar available so that the pollination is that much more intense.

[David LaFerney]

It seems like it would sweeten the deal for the bee keepers if the ground cover in the almond groves was clover or something so that they could get a honey crop before moving the bees out.

Would be nice, but then all the bees would be on the ground, not in the trees where they are needed!   I'm not sure, but that early I don't think that there's a whole lot else blooming, not to mention that they have more bees in there than they do nectar available so that the pollination is that much more intense.

I had in mind something that would bloom after the almond trees, maybe not clover - that way the almond honey could be taken off and kept separate.   

[deknow]

I'm sure smarter people than me have thought about this.  Trucking bees back and forth from Georgia every year just doesn't sound like a very sustainable system to me though.  Interesting how bees used in California that don't produce a honey crop lower the value of honey all over the country.

it's very sustainable...as long as gas/diesel is artificially cheap.

also, consider that in many of the larger operations, the bees are built up on hfcs....which they store in the comb.  now, who wants to truck hfcs to california, when lighter hives mean more $$$ per truck load?  so the hfcs is extracted (or boxes simply removed), bees transported, and here comes the tanker truck with fresh hfcs.

are we to assume that the extracted hfcs is not sold on the market as "honey"?

deknow

[TwT]

I had in mind something that would bloom after the almond trees, maybe not clover - that way the almond honey could be taken off and kept separate.  

see almonds bloom in February and first of March, a lot of people go other places after the almonds and pollinate and also some go back home up north and produce a full years honey crop, its just almonds bloom before almost everything and thats why you could still produce a honey crop..

[rdy-b]

Almonds are what drive the package bee industrie-nucs-not to mention queens for all the nucs and splits(one and a half million colonies needed for this event)-there is way more to the equation than the price per hive in the fields -people just dont  talk about the money that they can pull out of a hive busting at the seams with bees after the bloom-you gota get in the fields to build up the bees   RDY-B

[mjdtexan]

I saw a couple of mentions that almond honey is undesireble. Can you really tell the difference. 

[RayMarler]

The nectar from almonds comes so early in the year the bees will use it all up raising brood. It's the early spring buildup we desire that comes from almonds.  After almonds, then do the splits and queen rearing for the early spring queens/packages/nucs for sale.  The good table honey comes from other crops after almonds.

[mjdtexan]

The nectar from almonds comes so early in the year the bees will use it all up raising brood. It's the early spring buildup we desire that comes from almonds.  After almonds, then do the splits and queen rearing for the early spring queens/packages/nucs for sale.  The good table honey comes from other crops after almonds.

Oh. Ok. That makes sense. Thank You.

[rdy-b]

I saw a couple of mentions that almond honey is undesireble. Can you really tell the difference. 

The stuff taste like drinking listerine- -RDY-B

[wd]

From the Bug Squad's blog post titled "White Gold"

                                                             
Generally, California's almond pollination season starts around Feb. 10, Mussen says, and ends around March 10. That takes into account the early, mid- or late varieties that bloom at different times. However, the pollination period for each individual orchard is around 10 days.

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