To say that there are enough hives is crazy. Just consider these facts, depending upon who you talk to there are somewhere between 2.2 and 2.4 million hives in the United States total, this includes all of the hives owned by hobbyists and farmers that are not in the business of shipping hives around the country. Now realized that because of current laws we can’t ship hives from Canada, and it is almost impossible to ship hives from southern states because of fear of spreading fire ants. According to USDA of the 2.2 million hives they count for agricultural use as many as 600,000 have been affected with CCD
There were approximately 680,000 acres of almonds in California in 2007 and they are planting at the rate of about 30-40 thousand acres a year, about 10% are currently non bearing. This comes to about 615,000 acres that need hives. Crop insurance companies are requiring a minimum of two hives per acre, with many farmers believing it is better to be on the safe side and use 3 hives. Simple math says that this comes to close to 1.3 million hives minimum, USDA says 1.4 million hives were used last year. In addition to the almond crop, avocados, plums, Apples and cherries are all pollinated during the same time frame, I have no idea how many more hives this accounts for, but it is more than just 1 or 2.
In 2004 the cost of a hive for an almond grower was $40-$45 dollars, last year (2007) it was in the $150-$160 range and that was before CCD hit. 2007 was also the first year that the value of the almond crop to the bee keeping industry was more than the wholesale value of all honey production.
One other interesting fact, because of bee shortages, 2005 is when the almond growers first started importing hives in large quantity from Australia to make up for the shortage of local bees.
Local professional beekeepers in California are reporting between a 20%-40% loss of hives this winter. If the finger is really pointed at some virus form Australia for CCD then it wouldn’t surprise me to see California outlaw Australian bees. When you consider that almonds are a 2 billion plus industry in California, you start to understand why everyone is so worried.
Cheers
Jay