It’s not too early to be thinking about your bees for the 2010 pollination season.  Contact your beekeeper(s) soon and begin a dialogue about the upcoming season.  Talk to your beekeeper about bee health and also colony rental fees.  Begin negotiations for price, number of colonies and hive strength.  Be sure you finalize your discussions by having a contract in place.  With the high input cost of colony rentals, a well-written contract serves to protect your interests and insure there are no surprises once the pollination season begins. 

You can access a sample pollination contract on www.ProjectApism.org (see “Downloads”).   Here you will find a format for your negotiations.  This sample contract includes important factors to formalize in a written manner, including location and timing for placement of hives, number of frames of bees and minimum frame coverage by bees, inspection guidelines, removal of the bees after pollination, payments to the beekeeper, and guidelines for grower/beekeeper communication (i.e., for pesticide spraying). 

In addition to discussing the business relationship between yourself and your beekeeper, ask the beekeeper about bee health.  The summer and fall months are important months for bees.  Let your beekeeper know you are interested in summer, fall and winter bee care – not just what occurs during the pollination season.  Good management techniques employed during the summer and fall months have a significant impact on over-wintering colonies.  A colony that over-winters well will be best prepared for the early almond pollination season. 

Here are some questions to ask your beekeepers that will show them you know you are renting more than just a white box and a few insects: 

1) What do you use for varroa mite control, and how and when is it used? 

2) Do you control for Nosema?  What do you use and when?  

3) What type of testing is performed on your bees?  How and when do you take mite counts?  Do you test for Nosema spores?  Do you test for viruses?  Do you perform any tests for the nutritional status of the bees?

4) Do you feed your bees a supplement?  If you feed a supplement, what do you feed and when is it fed? 

These questions are important.  Varroa mites are still the biggest nemesis to beekeepers.  Even given the publicity about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) the last couple years, varroa mites remain the major problem that needs to be under control.  Not only does this parasitic mite compromise bee health, they also vector viruses.  Nosema, a fungal pathogen, is emerging as a probable factor in CCD.  Healthier hives appear to have Nosema under control.   Bee researchers are learning more about bee viruses.  Virus detection is now possible for a reasonable fee (www.ProjectApism.org/ see “Diagnostics” tab).   Almond growers should pay particular attention to a beekeeper’s supplemental feeding of his bees.  Bees require good nutrition for optimum health, just like humans.  Protein is key to colony vigor, strength and bee longevity.  Protein and good nutrition sources facilitate the over-lapping of generations of bees within the hive and ultimately mean more bees for the early pollination season. 

Even though the dust is settling from this past pollination season, it’s not too early to be thinking and planning for the next pollination season. 

Chris Heintz is Executive Director for Project Apis m. a non-profit bee research organization.  Should you have questions about bees, they can be answered via this column for the benefit of other Blue Diamond almond growers.   Submit your questions to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .