# Economics of pollination for distant beekeepers



## bison (Apr 27, 2011)

I'm a hobbyist keeper in NorCal and am simply curious about the economics of shipping bees across the country for almond pollination, a question that was triggered as I drove to Reno last week and saw a semi hauling hives west on 80. Purely curious.

Here's my guess, please let me know if I'm close:
A semi moves about 500 hives. I understand each hive gets about $150 for almonds (though is some taken by a broker?). So that's $75,000 in revenue per hive assuming no losses (maybe 10% lost?). Trucking them back and forth across the country can't be cheap - my guess (??) is $2,500 each way, $5k round trip. Maybe another couple thousand in labor on-site and for misc expenses. 

So that would be $67,500 revenues (with 10% losses) minus $7k expenses (shipping plus labor), netting about $60k to the keeper per semi load. 

I know I am ignoring many other costs involved in the business of beekeeping, including overwinter losses, equipment, treatments, insurance, taxes, interest, etc... just focusing on the financial incentive for the expense and effort to get a truckload of bees ready to ship across the country.

Thanks


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## babybee (Mar 23, 2012)

Costs us 6k for each way, so 12k for a round trip in trucking out of east Texas. Think about the Florida guys!! Lol


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## bison (Apr 27, 2011)

babybee said:


> Costs us 6k for each way, so 12k for a round trip in trucking out of east Texas. Think about the Florida guys!! Lol


Thx - so lets say $18k from FL... that would make net $47k per load if my other math was right. Am I missing or off on other costs?


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## drlonzo (Apr 15, 2014)

Truckload of bees in double deeps is only about 408 if memory serves me correctly.
Almond prices for pollination is around $170 for most from what i've read on here.
Broker prices range from as low as $10 a hive to as much as $25 per hive depending on if they overwinter them and set them.


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## Honey-4-All (Dec 19, 2008)

Think of it this way. If it didn't pay they would not send them. Simple as that. 

The first year I put bees in the almonds the average price was 16-18 dollars. Trust me..... We did not see many license plates from indiana and south dakota or even virginia in those days. I doubt there were any!!! 

As the acreage has more than quadrupled since then the demand for bees to get the nuts on the trees has pushed the price for pollination services 10x what I received in 1980. With the price of dirt being bid up in my area to the tune of close to $30,000 an acre by the big almond corporations looking for good dirt and water one should not expect the price in the near future bar any major world trade issues. In fact it would not suprise me if the market for pollination bees even extends to a range where the borders to the north will even open up to Canadian bees heading south. 


If the pollination price drops even $30 the leverage top get florida bees all the way to Cali is at the cusp of being unprofitable when one considers the alternatives that could be done with the bees.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

By running a 3:2 double to single mix you can squeeze something north of 500 hives on a load. It helps considerably on freight and select singles shouldnt hurt your goal of an overall 8 frame average, assuming the growers are good with it. There are more costs than the long haul trucking, though. It's a pretty big job readying a load so they are all of proper size and free of debris and ants. It also takes extra feeding and supplements also extra expense and wear and tear on your own vehicles (and bodies) rehandling all your hives several more times. Brokerage/handling is around $20 per hive and thefts are usually your liability. 
With all that in mind, for bees in most of the country, aside from perhaps Florida, what the heck else are those bees going to be doing from mid February to mid March? It's kind of a myth that you can't get both a almond pollination check and a northern honey crop in the same year, one starts roughly 3 months after the other one is done. So all in all a net of $100 per hive, give or take figures out to be a pretty good little chunk of change.


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

The price is always going to reflect the risk of catastrophic loss to thieves, road accidents, and chronic and acute pesticide exposure. 

The big Almond operations are integrating vertically by buying land in Texas and North Dakota, and will run bees as a in-house subsidiary.

In that there is a major dis-economy of scale -- in that the likelihood of catastrophic risk per operator goes up. They will price this risk internally to the penny, including the capital and opportunity cost of buying the land in Texas.

As the integrated corporations are going to manage against a prescription, the likelihood of misapplying a management is magnified. Say a corporation decides optimum treatment is in ND after sunflowers, it may inadvertently set up a major loss when mites in Texas pushed by a late monsoon overwhelm all 100,000 hives under its direction. In a distributed system of smaller operators, some will make more cautious decisions, and the total number of healthy hives will be greater.

A lot of the medium-scale operators have inherited operations (amortized capital) and mis-price the catastrophic risk (as they can be "lucky" for multiple years). This means the accountants at the huge Almond operations will still see the independent operators as pricing below the corporations internal cost.

Honey-4-All is correct that today's price is set by the marginal incentive for the last needed truckload of bees to leave Florida. If they don't travel, the price goes up to get them to the West Coast, and all other prices follow. It is rumored that aggressive use of pesticide for Asian Citrus Psyllid in Florida groves is driving Florida bees out, and that will affect the marginal incentive.


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

When I was working for a couple North Dakota commercial beeks in the seventies, they had sworn they would never go back to almonds. The bees were so poisoned they wouldn't produce a crop after returning. They still needed a warm place and would take 1/4 the bees they planned on running to Texas and split them and built them up to come back and make a crop. The trip was all expense. 

Now for whatever reason, the trip to the almonds is not only lucrative, but the bees coming off the almonds are in great shape to make a crop. Something about where to stick a fat hog comes to mind.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

I'm not sure why any large operation needs to buy land in Texas or ND aside from a spot for a building and to park some trucks. 
Hmmmmm. Now I am wondering if I am one of those "lucky medium scale operations " that has been mis-pricing my catastrophic risk. :scratch:
Here is something I have learned after years of making mistakes. The better your management the better your bees. Those large scale entities testing the waters of commercial beekeeping best make sure they have plenty of experience on board or they will rue the day they ever bought a beehive. It's a free country and I wish them no ill. Some may succeed , and some may be selling truck loads of moth eaten combs a few years down the road.


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## Sadler91 (Nov 6, 2011)

Cost us around 14k from Florida to ship. The Citrus greening and loss of grove acreage has pushed us to start playing the California game. The honey is just not there in the groves anymore. Maybe a good year out of every 5.


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## rookie2531 (Jul 28, 2014)

jim lyon said:


> I'm not sure why any large operation needs to buy land in Texas or ND aside from a spot for a building and to park some trucks.
> Hmmmmm. Now I am wondering if I am one of those "lucky medium scale operations " that has been mis-pricing my catastrophic risk. :scratch:
> Here is something I have learned after years of making mistakes. The better your management the better your bees. Those large scale entities testing the waters of commercial beekeeping best make sure they have plenty of experience on board or they will rue the day they ever bought a beehive. It's a free country and I wish them no ill. Some may succeed , and some may be selling truck loads of moth eaten combs a few years down the road.


Don't underestimate power players, they will hire someone who knows the game well.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

rookie2531 said:


> Don't underestimate power players, they will hire someone who knows the game well.


No doubt. The unique thing about beekeeping (compared to most of agriculture) is it dosent lend itself real well to mega sized operations. At its core, beekeeping is still beekeeping as it has always been. The best operations are those run by very "hands on" blue collar types who both teach and crack the whip when needed and many of them have already expanded to the 10,000+ hive range. They are usually employing foreign labor which can be very hit and miss. I've seen lots of very good foreign laborers but communication can be a problem at times. It's really tough to teach the proper skills when you have a language barrier.
Another immutable fact of beekeeping as I know it is just hiring good help isn't easy. Yes, you can probably find a good manager at the top but just as important is finding good field lieutenants to implement the plans. Perhaps as many as one for every thousand hives. Those are the kind of folks who are hard to keep around as the very best ones are always looking to start their own operations. 
Commercial beekeeping has already become increasingly dominated by lots of bright and ambitious folks. The fact that more are wanting to get in, regardless of their wealth or their background, is something I don't find particularly surprising or alarming. The only constant in this world is change. Your time is best spent worrying primarily about your own business and not fretting about what others may be up to.


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## Allen Martens (Jan 13, 2007)

Sage words Jim.

Good managers often like to take the next step and become owners. Much more affordable than in other areas of agriculture.


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## Hogback Honey (Oct 29, 2013)

Bison, notice the "hives for sale after almonds" ads. Looks like a lot of companies ship out to Calif, get paid for pollination, then don't bother shipping them back, just sell them at $150.00, or so apiece.


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