Becoming a Beekeeper - Honeybee: Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper - page 11

One-third of the food produced in the world—or one out of three bites of anything
we humans eat—depends, to some degree, on honeybees. Healthy bees mean not only
more honey but also a wide variety of food on our tables. Without honeybees, our sup-
ply of fresh food would be severely limited.
Beekeepers hire out honeybee populations to farmers around the country who rely
ontheirhoneybeestofacilitatethepollinationoftheircrops.Farmerssecurethisservice
through pollination contracts. Beekeepers are hired annually and are paid per hive. In
2008, they were paid $135 to $190 per hive. They often make more money renting out
their colonies for pollination than they do selling their own honey. You can feel good
about purchasing honey, because you know that the bottle represents not only all the
workthehoneybeesputintomakingitbutalsotheworktheyhavedoneforagriculture,
farmers, and the food we eat every day.
It's estimated that there are nearly 2.4 million colonies of honeybees in the United
States, and each year two-thirds of these are trucked around the country to pollinate
crops for farmers. A typical season might begin in California, where 580,000 acres of
almond groves completely depend on honeybees for pollination. (California supplies
100 percent of the nation's almonds and 80 percent of the world's almonds.) Each
February, migratory beekeepers load 1.5 million honeybee colonies onto trailer trucks
just to pollinate the state's almond crop. This huge operation is the largest pollination
event in the world, requiring more than half of all beehives in the United States! The
bees are then trucked to the Northeast to work on the cherry and apple blossoms. New
York State, for example, needs 30,000 hives to pollinate its apple crops. Next stop is
the orange groves in Florida, followed by the cranberry bogs in New Jersey and Mas-
sachusetts. The bees will then journey to the clover fields of North Dakota and finally
to Maine, which needs about 50,000 hives for its blueberries.
Honeybee pollination adds $15 billion to $20 billion a year to the agriculture output
of the United States, but its value to the economy cannot be underestimated. Almond
producers estimate that by 2012, 2 million beehives will be needed to pollinate the ex-
pected 800,000 acres of almonds. Other crops—like melons, avocados, watermelons,
cantaloupe, all varieties of citrus fruits, and cucumbers—also require several visits by a
honeybee before they can bear fruit.
Honeybees also play a very important part in our supply of beef, milk, cheese, and
other dairy products. Farmers rely heavily on honeybees to pollinate a large part of the
alfalfa and clover crops. Both are rich in protein and make up about one-third of the
diet of cows. Cows can be fed grasses and grains, but these foods don't have as much
protein. Well-fed cattle means tastier meat, milk, and cheese. Häagen Dazs claims that
40 percent of the ingredients in its ice cream flavors are dependent upon honeybees.