>> If they had any thought for their 'environmental credentials' they would 
>> cease growing almonds
>> [or] keep their own bees for pollination, reducing the need for shifting 
>> bees around the country

> Seems like everybody is down on migratory beekeepers these days. These 
> guys are the unsung heroes of modern fruit production, IMHO.

Yes, and it is easy for those who know very little or have limited 
experience about US beekeeping or farming to make high-sounding 
pronouncements, but the simple fact is that the people involved are highly 
educated, well experienced, well travelled, and are constantly examining 
their options.  They have access to research and extension and use it. Most 
are country born and bred and love nature and the land.  They are interested 
in more than 'environmental credentials'.  They are interested in the 
environment itself.

There is a bias to reducing inputs and improving quality, but the 
constraints as to how they accomplish this are largely economic.  A high US 
dollar in the past decade reduced the costs of imported honey and ag 
products, putting extreme pressure on US agricultural producers, thinning 
the ranks, and ensuring that the most reliable, lower-risk methods prevail.

As a note of interest and illustration  of what typically happens when 
growers try to be beekeepers, there is a berry grower in Canada that owns 
its own hives, possibly with the same sort of thought in mind, but more 
likely motivated by the idea that those greedy pollinating beekeepers are 
charging far too much.

So far it is not working out too well.  One bee manager destroyed their 
entire  bee population one spring by mismanagement.  (He was operating by a 
theory).  Another year, their bee manger (another one) committed suicide. 
They then hired back the guy who  wrecked their bees.  The story continues, 
but the idea does not seem to work for them yet.

How did they get pollination when their bees failed?  You guessed it, they 
called upon the evil, gouging migratories to fill the gap.  Greenhouses 
typically do a bad job of beekeeping when they attempt beekeeping as well.

That is not to say that there are not growers who can pull it off, but they 
are a small minority and their success may be due to special circumstances.

We have some examples of success with growers owning bees in Canada, too, 
but they have their bad years.  Where it works, they have a very experienced 
ex-commercial beekeeper working for them.  They also operate very much like 
migratories, since they have to move their bees just like migratories, but 
more limited distances.

Pollinating bees need to be moved to good pasture annually to recover from 
the pollination or they dwindle and die.

These are the hard facts,  I suppose we could fantasize about what might 
happen in a perfect world (different for each of us), but this is how it is 
because it is how it has to be, in the real world in which we live today. 

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