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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><a
href="http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-almondbee26mar26,1,754447.story">http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-almondbee26mar26,1,754447.story</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-style:italic'>From the <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Los Angeles</st1:place></st1:City> Times</span></font></i><o:p></o:p></p>
<h4><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>FIELD
REPORT<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h4>
<h1><b><font size=6 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:24.0pt'>Season
of hope<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h1>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>The growing <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:State>
almond industry depends on honeybees to pollinate the trees. As Colony Collapse
Disorder shrinks the bee population, the cost of renting hives has soared.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>By Russ Parsons<br>
<st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Los Angeles</st1:place></st1:City>
Times Staff Writer<br>
<br>
March 26, 2008<br>
<br>
<st1:City w:st="on">BAKERSFIELD</st1:City> — Every spring, just as the
swallows return to Capistrano, so do the bees buzz back to <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Bakersfield</st1:place></st1:City>. But don't expect to look up in
the sky and see a swarm of them making their way west. These bees travel by
truck.<br>
<br>
And though the place they're visiting is certainly beautiful, trees arranged in
graceful <i><span style='font-style:italic'>allées</span></i> and topped with
billowing white and pale pink clouds of blossoms, this trip is all business.<br>
<br>
The almond industry, which has emerged over the last decade as one of the
biggest and most profitable in <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:State>
agriculture, depends on bees for pollination. And so every spring, fully 60% of
the commercially kept honeybees in the <st1:country-region w:st="on">United
States</st1:country-region> -- more than 1 million hives -- are trucked to <st1:State
w:st="on">California</st1:State>'s <st1:place w:st="on">Central Valley</st1:place>
to do their thing.<br>
<br>
But what happens when one of the state's fastest-growing businesses depends on
workers who are disappearing almost as quickly? That's what <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:State>'s almond farmers are waiting to
find out.<br>
<br>
<st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:State>
produces almost 80% of the world's almonds, grossing more than $2 billion in
2007. The state's almond exports are more than twice the value of its wine
exports.<br>
<br>
While almonds have been growing into an agricultural powerhouse, bee
populations have been dwindling. Most recently, plagued by a mysterious
condition called Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, honeybee colonies across the
country have been vanishing, abandoning perfectly good hives. Even after two
years, no one yet knows why. Theories are many, but definite answers are few.<br>
<br>
And though the source of the disease is a mystery, its potential effects are
not -- at least when it comes to almonds. Because it's this simple: Without
bees, there are no nuts.<br>
<br>
Pretty as they are, if ever there was a plant that seemed designed to resist
all efforts at domestication, it is the almond tree. Not only must the flowers
be cross-pollinated with another almond variety, but because of the way the
flowers are constructed, they rely on bees to do the pollinating. Other crops
can be fertilized by birds, other bugs or even wind, but almonds need bees.<br>
<br>
Plus, almonds flower for only about three weeks and always early in the spring,
when the bees are at their lowest energy, just emerging from their winter rest.<br>
<br>
So although most attention is focused on the fall harvest, almond farmer Matt
Billings, 36, says it's this short period of time in the spring that makes or
breaks his year. "If we don't have bees or if it rains or blows or
anything else, we've got nothing else to do for the rest of the summer,"
he says. "The whole crop is determined in this three-week window."<br>
<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>More almond trees</span></b><br>
<br>
EARLY one mid-February morning in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Billings</st1:place></st1:City>'
orchards, with the valley fog still cool and clinging, the beehives look like
board boxes that have been discarded on the dirt shoulders between the road and
the trees. A second-generation almond farmer from <st1:City w:st="on">Bakersfield</st1:City>,
<st1:City w:st="on">Billings</st1:City> and his father D ("no period, just
D") farm about 1,000 acres of almond trees scattered along 30 miles of
Highway 99 between <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Bakersfield</st1:place></st1:City>
and Earlimart.<br>
<br>
There are few sights in farming more beautiful than an orchard in spring, and
that's especially true for almonds. "It kind of looks like a street in <st1:City
w:st="on">Paris</st1:City>, doesn't it?" asks <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Billings</st1:place></st1:City>, and it kind of does.<br>
<br>
Up and down the valley, from south of <st1:City w:st="on">Bakersfield</st1:City>
to north of <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Modesto</st1:place></st1:City>,
there are similar orchards, covering more than a half-million acres total.<br>
<br>
Because almonds have been almost uniformly profitable for more than a decade,
the acreage devoted to the crop has increased by almost a third since 1997 and
is projected to increase by more than 20% over the next five years.<br>
<br>
If that happens, it's estimated that pollination will require the services of a
whopping 70% of all the commercially kept bees in the <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region><br>
<br>
And that's when what has been mainly an expensive inconvenience could turn into
something more. Because while almond trees are being planted, honeybees are
vanishing.<br>
<br>
The cause of CCD determinedly resists solution. The condition is as fickle as
fate. One beekeeper might lose almost all of his hives while his neighbor, who
follows exactly the same practices, escapes unscathed.<br>
<br>
"Whatever this is, it's not playing any favorites," says Eric Mussen
of UC Davis, one of the leading apiculture experts in the <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
"Pretty much everywhere it's been, it's clobbered some people and not
affected quite a few others."<br>
<br>
To a certain extent, these die-offs have happened periodically since at least
as early as the 1890s and included spells during the mid-1960s and mid-1970s,
when losses were severe and ended just as mysteriously as they began.<br>
<br>
In fact, the extent of last year's outbreak is unclear. Media reports were
widespread, but a national survey of beekeepers found that only 23% reported
CCD-like symptoms in their hives. Estimates for this year are similar.<br>
<br>
"That means a quarter of the beekeepers had the problem and three-quarters
of them lucked out," Mussen says. "But while those lucky ones are
certainly happy, they don't know why that happened or what will happen this
year."<br>
<br>
Various culprits have been suggested: mites, viruses, poor nutrition,
genetically modified plants, travel stress, pesticides, drought, and, of
course, global warming. In all probability, Mussen says it's likely to be some
combination of several of those factors rather than any one single cause.<br>
<br>
So far, the main effect of the shortage of bees has been skyrocketing prices
for their services. The price has gotten so high that a flurry of honeybee
rustling has occurred in the valley. Only five or six years ago, farmers could
rent hives for $30 or $40 each. That's still the price for most crops, but
today for almonds, the increased competition means pollination costs $140 to
$150 per hive and sometimes more.<br>
<br>
Because it takes an average of two hives to pollinate an acre of trees, that
can add up pretty quickly. Renting bees for 1,000 acres of almonds could run as
much as $300,000 or more.<br>
<br>
D Billings says when he started farming almonds in the early 1970s, beekeepers
would volunteer to park their hives in the orchards during bloom. Now, he says,
he spends as much on pollination as he does on water -- astonishing in the
parched southern end of the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">San
Joaquin</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Valley</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>.<br>
<br>
To facilitate pollination, almond orchards are usually planted with alternating
rows of different varieties. The money nut is the Nonpareil variety, which is
the pretty one that is most often sold for eating out of hand. The rest of the
orchard will be divided between varieties that bloom early in the cycle and
those that bloom late. These will go to breakfast cereal, baking, and candy and
ice cream making.<br>
<br>
And even though this year's bloom was delayed by chill, once it got started the
weather was for the most part warm and dry. But at this time of year it could
just as easily have turned wet, cold or windy -- conditions that will keep the
bees hidden in their hives.<br>
<br>
Indeed, even the cool of the morning keeps them close to home. In <st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Billings</st1:place></st1:City>' orchard, at
first the hives look deserted. But as the air warms, the bees become more
active. By the time the sun is high, the buzzing from their hives is audible a
dozen yards away and you can see them boiling out of the gaps in the top -- off
to work.<br>
<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>In search of a good buzz</span></b><br>
<br>
IT'S this very industriousness that makes honeybees so valuable as pollinators.
Turn a hive of bumblebees -- honeybees' big, black-faced cousins -- loose in an
orchard and they'll amble one by one among the trees, pollinating with a lazy
nonchalance. A hive of honeybees, though, will cover the trees in a swarm.<br>
<br>
Farmers find their bees in a variety of ways. Dig around on the website of the <a
href="http://www.almondboard.com/">California Almond Board</a> and you'll find
a Craigslist-like <a
href="http://www.almondboard.com/applications/pollinationdir/PollinatorList.cfm">directory</a>
of hundreds of beekeepers advertising their services. Other farmers use
brokers, who coordinate the hives of smaller beekeepers.<br>
<br>
Most of these beekeepers are mom-and-pop operations. Mussen says a typical
beekeeper needs to run about 1,000 hives to be profitable. A few bigger outfits
manage 12,000 to 15,000 hives.<br>
<br>
For almost 25 years, the Billings have rented their bees from Dennis Arp, a
beekeeper in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Flagstaff</st1:City>, <st1:State
w:st="on">Ariz.</st1:State></st1:place><br>
<br>
"Every February they give us a couple of cases of honey and we give them a
couple of boxes of almonds, that's how we start every year," Matt Billings
says.<br>
<br>
Arp keeps around 1,000 colonies himself and uses his connections with other
keepers to fill the <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Billings</st1:place></st1:City>'
demand. Some beekeepers have started flying hives in from <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Australia</st1:place></st1:country-region> to
meet their commitments.<br>
<br>
"The price just keeps creeping up," Arp says. "Sometimes I feel
kind of sorry for the <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Billingses</st1:place></st1:City>.
I think what's happened is the numbers of acres of almonds kept increasing, but
everyone still kept adding more almonds. The acreage kept increasing, but the
population of bees didn't."<br>
<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>High-mileage bees</span></b><br>
<br>
EVERY spring, about a week before the almond trees start to flower, Arp loads a
bunch of his hives on the backs of a couple of semis and drives them to <st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Delano</st1:place></st1:City>. He unloads them
in the cool evening, catches a few hours sleep, then drives back to repeat the
trip with the remaining bees.<br>
<br>
When the bees are done working the almond trees, they'll be trucked to the <st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Phoenix</st1:place></st1:City> area, where Arp
will put them in citrus groves to make orange blossom honey (honey from the
nectar of almond flowers is too thin and bitter to be useful). From there they'll
move on to high desert orange groves and finally wind up on desert wildflowers.<br>
<br>
Other beekeepers prefer to keep their charges pollinating. Some will stay in
the Central Valley, working the peach, nectarine and plum orchards and then
moving on to squash and melons. Others will travel as far north as <st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Washington</st1:place></st1:State> state to
pollinate apples, cherries and pears. Or they'll go back east to work orchards
and cranberry bogs there.<br>
<br>
And Arp has been affected by CCD. He says he lost 500 colonies last year and an
additional 250 to 300 this year. He says he has spent $40,000 buying new
colonies to replace those he lost -- a major expenditure for a small operation.<br>
<br>
"That was a little discouraging," says Arp, who seems every bit as
laid-back as his charges are industrious. "The colony kind of goes from
looking pretty good in the fall, to the population just disappearing.<br>
<br>
"From a beekeeper's point of view, everything looks real good, there's a
good laying queen and lots of honey stored. And then two or three weeks later
you go back and something has happened. Instead of the colony expanding and
moving forward, it's going backward, and really fast.<br>
<br>
"I'm not really sure what's going on with it," he says. "I don't
think [Colony Collapse Disorder] will be the end of beekeeping, but it's having
an impact. I'm trying not to hit the panic button."<br>
<br>
That's about the same attitude the Billings have, running a million-dollar
business that depends on the whims of a six-legged insect. "What will we
do" if Colony Collapse Disorder problems continue? asks Matt. "Mostly
worry. We've pretty much perfected that."<br>
<br>
For the immediate future, anyway, it's just another in a long list of
inconveniences. Once again this spring it looks like the honeybees have done
their job.<br>
<br>
<a href="mailto:russ.parsons@latimes.com">russ.parsons@latimes.com</a> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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