During the long, wet California winter, beekeeper Gene Brandi said he had to spend twice as much money on sugary syrup to feed his bees and keep them alive.
This is because the bees sent to pollinate the flourishing almond orchards took longer than usual to leave their hives due to low temperatures, wind and rain. Since the bees weren’t collecting nectar and pollen for food, the 71-year-old beekeeper provided them with sustenance.
“We probably feed twice what we have fed in a normal year,” said Brandi, from the Los Banos community in the Central Valley. “It’s expensive to feed it, but it’s more expensive if the hive dies.”
The challenge is one of many facing US beekeepers after an unusually wet winter devastated California’s agricultural country, which feeds much of the nation. Most commercial beekeepers send their bees to California early in the year to help pollinate their $5 billion-a-year almond crop, then move them elsewhere to pollinate produce ranging from avocados to cherries to the Midwest. to produce honey.
The state was battered this winter by at least a dozen atmospheric rivers, long plumes of moisture from the Pacific Ocean, as well as powerful storms fueled by arctic air that produced blizzard conditions in mountainous areas. Winter weather flooded homes, caused power outages and brought much-needed rain to drought-parched agriculture, though in some cases, more water than crops could handle.
It also affected the bees, which were slow to leave their hives during the cold front and the rainy weeks.
Almond growers say it’s too early to tell whether the delayed bee appearance will affect the state’s walnut crop, which accounts for about 80% of the world’s almonds, according to the California Almond Board. With a slight reduction in almond acreage after three years of drought and severe winter, there may be fewer nuts this year than last year, which was a boom year for the crop, said Rick Kushman, a spokesman for the Board of Almonds of the state.
Almond trees rely on bees for cross-pollination, and in turn, the bees feed on the pollen from the almonds, which helps maintain the hives during bloom. While many people keep bees as a hobby, commercial beekeepers can have hundreds of hives and relocate their bees to pollinate various crops in different seasons.
Bryan Ashurst, who sends his bees north from California’s Imperial Valley to pollinate almond trees, said some hives were washed away by floodwaters. He said he sent six workers to try to feed his bees during the cold snap since they weren’t flying, something he hasn’t done in at least two decades and cost at least $45,000.
“In bees, the margins are slim, so we are investing huge amounts of money,” he said.
Dan Winter, president of the American Beekeeping Federation, trucked his bees from Florida in late January to pollinate California almond orchards, which took longer than usual due to the weather. That delayed his return, so he said now he must hurry to prepare the hives to travel to New York for apple pollination in less than a month.
“We have to get going and work a little faster, a little harder,” Winter said. “It only costs a little.”
There may be a sweet spot for California beekeepers, as the rain is expected to bring an explosion of spring wildflowers, which could provide abundant forage for bees and potentially spell a good year for honey.
Brandi said she will be bringing her hives to coastal areas this spring so the bees can feed on a native plant to make sage honey, a premium product she can only make every few years when it rains a lot.
“It is the finest honey we can make,” he said, adding that the last sage honey he has in his store dates from 2019.
After that, Brandi, who sells honey to Bay Area buyers and a Midwestern honey packer that supplies Costco, said her bees will move on to feed on other plants and make even more honey.
“We have been praying for rain for the last three dry years, and we finally have it,” he said. “Should be a wonderful spring once it warms up for the bees.”
