SP>From: Sid Pullinger <[log in to unmask]>
  >Date:         Sat, 15 Jun 1996 07:35:57 +0100
  >Subject:      Where do all the almonds go?
 
SP><< crop pollination plus the largest and most active
  >group of commercial and hobby beekeepers and in the spring a large
  >percentage of all the bees on wheels in the United States who take part
  >in one of the great wonders of the agricultural world, the movement of
  >800,000+- hives of bees to pollinate 400,000+- acres of almond trees.>>>
 
  >I am curious.  If the American acre is the same as the British, this is 625
  >square miles of trees - and a lot of almonds.  Where do they all go?  As I
  >see it almonds play a very small part in my diet, on the occasional cake and
  >the icing at Christmas.  Can someone enlighten me as there must be a lot of
  >uses I know nothing of.
 
Hi Sid,
 
The Rest of the Story.
 
  I don't know the size of an acre in England but here it is the
standard unit of measurement for farm land and will support about 60+-
almond tress which are irrigated and require about 3 feet of water
per year to produce a crop more of less.
 
  If the bee and almond story in California is one of the agricultural
worlds wonders, the second wonder has to be the almonds grown in the
Mediterranean acre which in total acres exceeds that of what we have in
California..  The wonder here is not the size of the planting which have
been increasing each year, but the fact that organized pollination and
honeybees play little or NO part in the crop produced there? The
production is low compared to what is produced in California per
acre but then for the most part these trees are grown with no
supplemental irrigation. Fifty years ago most of the almonds in
California were also grown without the benefit of irrigation and more
almonds were grown in the costal areas then the interior valley and
bees were not sought out for pollination and no one would dream of
paying beekeepers for almond pollination. Production per acre was also
low compared to today. Now the almonds are grown the full length of the
interior valley from Bakersfield to Redding. If all the beehives used to
pollinated this crop were set out single file they would form a white
line from Bakersfield to Sacramento and beyond, maybe 300 miles
depending on how close you put them together.<G>
 
  The California almond crop is unique in the part the world market
plays in marketing the crop. About half or more of the crop is exported
and the price the growers receives is dependent on the world price. For
many years the world price has been good encouraging more planting.
 
Unlike the sometimes world price for US honey which more times then not
in the past was a market we used for what was surplus of our own needs
and we usually received a lower price then the domestic price for the
same honey. But we all know that has changed, besides being contradictory to
international trade agreements, here in the US and we now must import
honey to supply the domestic market and depending on the year that may
bee 20 to 50% of our total consumption of honey, much of this goes into
the industrial market, but an increasing amount of the higher grades is
now sought after for table use.
 
  Almonds are prepared for market in many natural forms, maybe a 100 or
more. much of the export market is sold in a form to be used in the
industrial baking market by being graded for size, small size is used in
candy bars. Slivered, ground, sliced, all for used in baking, and just
fancy bleached whole almonds for cracking and eating by the consumer.
 
                             ttul, the OLd Drone
 
 
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