Almond Pollination

Hi Esther,

I tried to read an article on your blog about the dispute with the almond growers that Lance had written, but I couldn’t access it. Just a heads up. Maybe there was a problem with the link or something.

Lanita

Hi Lanita,

I wrote the article.

We deleted it, so as not to disclose the almond grower's names. The leader said that if he had to keep his word he would not use us next year.

Mormon beekeepers in Terra Bella are undercutting all the others, making it impossible to gain profit for pollination.

We visited one on Wednesday. I asked how they made money on pollination. She said, "Oh we don't make money on pollination. We make it on our honey." They set up a double stall honey display for the Farmer's market in San Francisco each Sunday.

Each Farmer's Market allows only one seller of honey. She said, "Other Farmer's markets in this area yield about $50 for the day."

Since we were making little from honey, Lance decided it would be more profitable to give the honey to the bees and just make divides so we would have more bees to go into pollination. We invested in queens, boxes, frames and a Dodge flat bed truck last year.

The wife of beekeeper friend who lives close, Marlys [and Gary] Wooten, just faced two similar "horror stories." She brought over papers to help us. Marlys read in their Ag paper, that “Eric” from UC Davis estimates that it costs beekeepers 150 to get each hive through the year.

It was a very stressful time and filmed by the NYC beekeeping documentary filmmakers.

Mike Mulligan, a broker, took 220 of our premium 8-10 frame hives. One farmer demanded that Mike have hives removed from one of his locations because a beekeeper had come along with cheaper hives.

The agreement must stand whether the market goes up or down.

~Esther