Zac Browning's bees tranported from North Dakota to Snelling, CA are awaiting the move the almond orchards.

The past two times I have traveled to California for the National Honey Bee Survey sampling we have also taken a look at some specific bees that have been moved from across the country to California for the almond pollination. The bees are Zac Browning’s who is a migratory beekeeper in North Dakota and his bees are part of a five year, on-going study on land use.

On Wednesday NPR released an article in which Browning and the study were featured, discussing the increased land use for corn production and the shrinking forage ground for honey bees in North Dakota. High corn prices, California’s increasingly huge almond crop, and the shrinking of open land in North Dakota all affect one another in ways many do not realize.

The almond crop continues to boom in California, making the US the largest almond producer in the world. These trees are dependent upon pollinators every bloom. No, not just a few pollinators, I mean billions. Billions of bees and over 1.5 million hives are trucked across the country every year for the almond bloom making it possible to produce the record 2 billion pounds of almonds that came from California orchards last year. Once the almond bloom has passed, the beekeepers must find a new home for their bees, usually trucking them across the country to open plains. North Dakota is a popular forage ground because of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) which in order to conserve water, soil and wildlife, the government sets aside farmland to rent. This land is home to indigenous plants such as alfalfa, clover, and wildflowers that provide abundant sources of forage for honey bees—without pesticides.

This is where the high corn prices come into play. As the demand of corn rises, farmers are putting less of their land into Conservation Reserve and more into corn production. In fact, in the last 5 years CRP land has been reduced by a third and the trend is only speculated to continue its downward slope. Acres and acres of corn, once rare in North Dakota, are becoming more common than ever before.

Acres and acres of corn. Photo Credit: Greenhead.net

Let’s face it, corn is everywhere, even more so than most of us realize. We consume it— and so does the meat and poultry on your dinner table, and the bright yellow egg yolks in your frying pan are that color because of the corn gluten the chicken who laid them consumed. Like that corn starch on the bottom of your pizza crust, the corn syrup that keeps the bread in your peanut butter sandwich fresh, the corn sweeteners that are in the citric acid keeping those otherwise brown vegetables bright in your salad, and don’t forget the buzz about high fructose corn syrup.  We don’t just eat it either; it is in wall paper paste, chalk and crayons, plaster board and gypsum, and of course the increasing presence of ethanol. Take a look at the ingredient labels in your daily foods and you will be surprised to find the amount of corn you are consuming.

Chip Eulliss of the US Geological Survey is studying land use changes relating to the loss of CRP lands. This study includes looking at the effects on a variety of species and one of these happens to be honey bees. The USDA is helping with this element, monitoring honey bees, in this case, Zac Browning’s to understand how honey bee health differs when bees have been on rich forage CRP lands versus those who have been on nutrient-poor-non CRP lands, such as corn fields, and how this affects them as they travel to California for the almond bloom. A simple equation if you will:  ↑ demand for corn and corn products + ↑ corn prices =↓CRP lands, but where does this leave the honey bees and the almond growers who depend on them to make the record almond crop every year? A large scale almond grower, a beekeeper from North Dakota and a corn farm in the mid west are more dependent upon one another than I ever realized before. This only further goes to show how one demand sets a chain reaction to directly affect another. While it may seem like 4 simple things—a kernel of corn, a dwindling wildflower, an almond and a hungry honey bee, we could start feeling the effects of this relationship pretty soon.