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 *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html