California’s Central Valley produces 80% of the world’s almonds and demand continues to grow, especially from overseas markets, to the point where there are no young almond trees available for purchase until 2016. With this increasing demand comes a matched increasing demand for pollinators. Almost 60% of the country’s total commercial honeybees or 1.5 million hives are transported to California to pollinate the crop. Problems arise because beekeeping husbandry methods remain basically the same since the 19th century however the scale of the beekeeping industry has exploded with some beekeepers keeping upwards of 20,000-30,000 hives making proper maintenance difficult. The convergence of so many bees from across the country causes cross contamination of viruses and pathogens. Tobacco ringspot virus, parasitic phorid flies, the intestinal fungus Nosema ceranae, and the varroa destructor mite are just some of the issues causing bee loss, not to mention the transport to California itself which can expose the bees to extremes in temperature from below freezing to high heat. Because of these factors beekeepers expect yearly losses of between 10% and 15%. However, despite this, the number of managed hives has remained steady for 20 years.
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