The question was never how many hives are needed per acre, that has pretty much been established at one per. The question is how many hives are needed to pollinate US crops? And secondly, are honey bees involved in maintaining wild life preserves via pollination? 

I made an estimate of the number of acres of crops that need bees, not counting almonds. Almonds are a separate case, they need bees in February which means those hives are free to pollinate these other crops when they move out of almonds:

Apples	347,800 
Apricots 	12,350 
Avocados	66,270 
Blackberries (Oregon) 	7,100 
Blueberries Cultivated	63,770 
Boysenberries (Oregon) 	600 
Cherries, Sweet 	85,310 
Cherries, Tart 	35,550 
Cranberries 	38,500 
Guavas (Hawaii) 	135 
Kiwifruit (California) 	4,200 
Nectarines 	30,300 
Olives (California) 	31,000 
Papayas (Hawaii) 	1,325 
Peaches 	118,830 
Pears 	57,000 
Plums (California) 	26,600 
Prunes (California) 	64,000 
Prunes and Plums	3,190 
Raspberries All (California) 	5,500 
Raspberries Black (Oregon) 	1,100 
Raspberries Red 	11,100 
Strawberries	58,080 

Total Acres 1,069,610

Some of these crops probably don't need bees but the big ones do, such as apples (350,000 acres). From this table, one million hives would be plenty, especially if they can do two or three jobs back to back. Wild insects are very likely adequate to pollinate wildlife preserves; many of these don't welcome honey bees in any case. On the other hand, wildlife preserves are excellent resorts for honey bees which may need to recuperate from being hired out to agriculture.

PLB

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