Tuesday, February 22, 2011
#33 Busy
California is the only place in North America where almonds are grown commercially. More than 80% of the world’s almonds are grown in California and, to pollinate them, the 7,000 or so growers hire about 1.4m of America’s 2.3m commercial hives. Thousands of trucks deliver the hives in February—from Maine, Florida, the Carolinas and elsewhere—and will soon pick them up again. The bees’ job is to flit from one blossom to the next, gorging themselves and in the process spreading the trees’ pollen.
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13 comments:
Bees get a California vacation? Lovely blooms and I learned something new.
Nice close up on the bee. Good to learn the bee colony seems to have recovered from the collapse a few years ago.
Almond blossoms smell soooooo good!
So many flowers so little time.
Love these shots and very creative theme interpretation. I love when the bees come to visit my tomatoes plants.
I like the bottom one the best--the way the bee is centered over the flower allows us to see all the details of the veins of its wings.
All great shots and thanks for the info too, I had never thought that bees were put to work like this.
Hard work for the bees and on limited time. I remember the sound when standing under my cherrytree
I have never heard of hiring bees, I would think they would just migrate there naturally! Interesting! Gorgeous images of the pollinating bees!
Wonderful shots - the detail of the bee wings is remarkable. I had heard of this practice of trucking in bees before... I read about it somewhere. Really appreciate you bringing this to our attention.
Gorgeous photos of the blossoms & bees. We'd be in deep trouble without those farmed bees. Colony Collapse Disorder is still a problem.
Great photos and story. I learned a little today about busy bees.
I think some of our SD bees vacation (a working one) in Calif too as we are the 4th or 5th top state for honey production. I love watching them go about their business. We have hives set on our farm every year too.
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