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California’s almond crop threatened by ‘catastrophic’ honeybee losses (www.sfchronicle.com)

submitted 6 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Unlike other crops, which can self-pollinate or rely on wind, beetles or other methods for pollination, almond trees’ biology makes them dependent on honeybees, said Aaron Smith, a professor of agricultural and resource economics at UC Berkeley.

Honeybees are a really good pollinator, and they make honey.

But I'm sure that they aren't the only option.

https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/48142/PDF/1/

Almond trees, Prunus dulcis, in California are particularly vulnerable to this decline as they are responsible for producing 80% of the world’s almonds and are estimated to use nearly 60% of all U.S. bee colonies for pollination during their bloom from February to March

They then have have a list of possible alternatives. Nothing today is as ideal as the honeybee (which shouldn't be a surprise, since otherwise one would have expected almond farms to have switched), but there are options out there. Hand pollination is apparently very effective, much more so than honeybees, but also very expensive. There are are other species of bees that can be used, though they aren't as effective for one reason or another. There's crop-dusting. Bunch of other options, like robotic bees and self-pollinating almond varieties.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago

Hand pollination would not be economically viable in California because of the prevailing wages. Almond production there is extremely automated and uses very little labor as is, so adding an incredibly labor intensive pollination method would hugely increase prices so as to be non-competitive with other producing regions.

Other bee species might be able to pollinate but there isn’t a consistent model around ensuring they visit the trees the way we have with honey bees. This probably should be developed but it could take years of research if it hasn’t already been formulated.