The bees benefit greatly from remaining in your orchards. After your trees have completed their bloom, if cover crop is still blooming, the bees will stay in your orchard. This reduces the opportunity for them to “get in trouble” through exposure to pesticide applications in surrounding crops. Farming is tough; it never presents us with perfect conditions. Using the flowering species currently available, the best opportunity to have flowers blooming by February requires planting cover crop seed by mid-October, followed by immediate irrigation to promote germination. This works in orchards with full coverage irrigation and most micro-sprinklers. Orchards utilizing drip irrigation do not have this option available and are totally dependent on early rainfall for a successful cover crop. Alternatively, the work to identify flowering species that will bloom prior to the beginning of February continues, but options are limited. If cover crops are not practical for your orchard, hedgerows may be an acceptable alternative. Flowering “bushes” near the orchard can also provide forage for the bees during the bloom. Hedgerows also have the benefit of being perennials that provide habitat for wild bees and other species year-round. Conservation cover, planting of flowering species on lands adjacent to the almonds, can also play a role in supporting the bees during the bloom, with positive impacts on your bottom line. Challenges facing American beekeepers and the supply of honey bees in the U.S. As the 2025 almond bloom began, the American honey bee industry received quite a bit of media coverage. Widespread reports of bee “die-offs” made the headlines as beekeepers across the U.S. prepared their colonies for shipment to California. Beekeepers have reported finding hives with adequate stores of food with no bees, or so few bees that the hives were not sustainable. It has been common for operations to experience losses of 25% to 75%. Some have even reported losses exceeding 80%. To understand the depth and breadth of the issue, Project Apis m . launched a survey of beekeepers across the U.S. The survey collected data from 702 beekeepers covering colony losses, management practices and potential contributing factors. Zac Browning, a fourth-generation beekeeper, and board chairman of Project Apis m . reported that “Initial survey results of colony losses suggest that
commercial beekeepers may have lost in excess of 60% of their bees.” A summary of the survey data estimated that participants accounted for over 1.835 million colonies, approximately 68% of the nation’s bees. At this point, there is no clear cause for the devastating losses beekeepers have endured. Recall that no clear factor was ever identified for Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Initial analysis of the survey data indicates that losses from the current issues are greater than those from CCD. Honey bee researchers with the USDA and several university laboratories have collected samples of bees, wax, food stores within the hives and even the hives themselves. There is much work ahead to analyze the data gathered in the surveys and the materials that have been gathered from impacted apiaries. In addition to the root cause(s), the most significant question is whether beekeepers will be able to rebuild their colonies in time for next winter. This poses the greatest concern for almond growers in the 2026 bloom. While the Blue Diamond field staff only received a few calls from growers reporting a shortage of hives or their inability to secure hives for the recently completed bloom, there have been several reports of weak hives. In my opinion, the greatest limitations on the potential of the 2025 crop are likely to be the result of unfavorable conditions prevalent during the 2024 growing season. This includes impacts of the high temperatures during bud differentiation and reduced crop inputs as growers worked with limited budgets. It will be several months before we begin to understand the root cause(s) of the current honey bee die-off. In the meantime, I encourage you to take advantage of the programs Blue Diamond offers to enhance pollination opportunities within your orchard.
Mel Machado, Vice President, Member Relations, Blue Diamond Growers
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MARCH–APRIL 2025
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