C'mon Charlie,  "worthless"?  John Muir describes the beauty and variety of
flora in the Central Valley prior to agriculture.  It was already a
wildlife and waterfowl oasis prior to European settlement.  Early honey
yields were fantastic.  All prior to conversion of the land to agriculture.

But yes, if we divert enough water from our rivers, we can farm the land
very productively.  I'm not saying this is right or wrong, but the author
(who spent time with me early in his research) paints a pretty accurate
picture.

I might cut you a little slack on the northern and central areas,  southern  no way......  Where we disagree is in the value.   A bunch of weeds that bees make honey on,  is not in any way productive valuable use of land.  You can drive about anywhere in the US and find simalar ground.  Somehow we (this author and most beekeepers) want to belive a crazy notion that a cpl hives of bees per square mile is good land use.   Well were that we could survive on milk and honey  that may work.  But we don't.  While good ole john loved his honey,  john was not feeding the world.  Nor even much of his neighbors.   If he were he could have bought up all the central valley and raised bees forever.
 To get to where we are as a human race,  we need food.  The men and women who own that land have figured out how to provide it,  and in this case,  a reporter and some bug lovers ( Of which I am one) think we know more than them.  Therein lies our real problem.  Since we don't own it,  we as beekeepers want to whine and cry and get the government involved so we can make some honey off the land that we have no  rights to.

AS to diverting water,  So??  We could leave it sit in Oroville reservoir until it evaporates off.  Or watch it run to the pacific...  instead we use it on the way by....   

In this case the amount of bee mass supported by almonds and oranges is HUGE...  what about that?/ the fact we pull more almond pollen and honey to feed up bees for other crops>?
Many of the guys I know in the Midwest send bees out there for that reason,  to feed them up in advance.....  tons of pollen going into those hives  BILLIONS of new bees generated!


>
> >Shes also off on how many hives get moved out there,  bit of an stretch.
> Its roughly 30% of the managed hives.
>

I'd like to hear how you come up with that figure.  We involved in almond
pollination come up with a much higher figure.  


1.6 million in almonds.  2.8 total in registered commercial,  another roughly 800k in hobby hives not registered.  (hard number to prove or disprove)  The florida groves are full of hives right now,  as well as many areas of texas.  While everyone who is in CA now thinks there it,  there are a lot of commercial guys who are not, and don't plan on being there.

>  Still around 15% of our land mass is AG,  not even a 1% change in the
last decade.

Charlie, you may be missing the point that that 15% is the most
biologically productive land.  So any human impact on it has a
disproportionate influence on pollinators and wildlife.  I've visited ag
areas that are green from horizon to horizon, yet won't support a half
dozen colonies in an apiary.

I live in one of these areas.  I put a lot of value in crops other than my honey.  The fact that it is the most productive land is the point.  We could try to irrigate Nevada and turn Iowa back to the bees,  but everyone would whine about that also!  I think your missing the point!  As US AG has been steady at 15% or so for 40 years,  output from that ground is up around 20%  supporting and increase of people with the same land mass.

>
> >Why is it every article we read has to be doom and gloom and anti
> farming???


There are many of us who are pro farming, but want to see our environmental
stewardship improved.  This is not doom and gloom nor anti farming.

Understood,  and we agree,  the amount of stewardship that is being done on a daily basis is totally hidden from view and glossed over by writers like that one.  That article was nothing more than a DIRE prediction carefully worded.  I was in no way "enlightened" or made to feel good about where we are from it.  AND that was not the point of the writer.

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