Hello All,
To those migratory beeks outside of California almond pollination is simply
one stop of many. However in many ways almonds present the most challenge.

Almond problems :

The hives are needed at a time when most hives are in their winter
posture( no dinks and only your best hives were sent in the old days). In 
the old days these hives
supplied all the pollination requirements ( in fact many still enter almond
pollination from winter cluster) without serious issues. Bumper crops in
many years.

The rush for the gold in California (Last few seasons of high fees) changed 
the scenario. Hives headed by
poor genetics were loaded up and hauled to California to try and make grade. 
Combining as recommended by brokers to out of state beekeepers ( rejected by 
us as  economically unsound) only helped keep inferior genetics in an 
operation. You might combine three hive together and get a pollination fee 
but you could end up with a "dink" queen hive ( poor genetics) and any way 
you look at it you had trucking for 3 hives involved and had 2 ( maybe 3) 
hives needing a package or nuc when returned to the Midwest.

From the start of out of state almond pollination  those hives were 
depopulated. In the old days the Adee's depopulated between 50-75% of their 
hives at seasons end before spring Mississippi split..

In Texas in spring a few beekeepers shake dink colonies into large bulk bee 
boxes and then kill with soapy water. Making splits from bees with poor 
genetics and health issues does not make sense.The method has produced super 
strong hives. They also raise all their own queens. Not that they want to 
but they produce far better ( in their opinion) queens than they can buy. 
They control the genetics and the production queen selection process.

 Little has been said about genetics and CCD but genetics in many of our 
opinions is a serious problem in certain commercial outfits/ queen producers 
operations.

There are many plus points about almond pollination which I point out in my 
ABJ article on *the pros and cons of almond pollination from a Midwest 
beekeeper perspective*published in the April 2005 American Bee Journal 
(Vol.145  no.4). The second largest commercial beekeeper in the U.S. ( which 
has sent as many as 20 semi loads into almonds) said at the time the article 
was the best and most accurate article on out of state almond pollination he 
had read and my best article to date.

Sincerely,
Bob Harrison

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