Migration Time

[aggienaut]

   If you happen to be on one of the major roads into California's Central Valley during the latter part of this week, you might notice a particular migration pattern. Bees --hundreds of thousands of them-- are migrating into California's a'mond* orchards. They are not doing this by flight however, no, they are coming in on flatbed after flatbed of hiveboxes.

   Almond pollinating is one of the most lucrative things you can do with bees, and 95% of almonds grow in two places: Lebanon, and California's Central Valley (and for that matter, I believe we kick Lebanon's ass in volume). Almonds need to be pollinated from February 1st through April 1st, so this week there will be a flood of beekeepers for literally several states away bringing their bees in.

   Last year contracts were $125 a hive, this year they are $140 a hive. Also, there apparently are more than enough bees to go around this year.


   Anyway, all this is to say, that tomorrow (Wednesday) morning I'm heeding the call of the beekeeper migration and heading up north to move some bees. Like I did last year (but hopefully without the 130 stings).


   What this means for you: is (A) don't be cross with me if I don't respond to your comments for the next few days, I'll be busy editing beehives; and (B) as I tend to do on roadtrips, I'll probably actually be updating twitter. Keep an eye on http://twitter.com/arrrghonaut for the play by play (will I get stung a record number of times? will we have some completely random misadventure? You hear it first!)


* All almond farmers seem to call them a'monds, and if my experience is a guide, every single one of them will relish telling you the joke "we call them a'monds, cause we shook the eLL out of them!" But really, if you talk about almonds enough I've found you do start to drop the L.


Totally Unrelated Picture

Beer shoots out of my m-----f---ing hand, because thats how I roll!

Comments

[pubiccheese.livejournal.com]

Are there many almond orchards in the southern hemisphere?

[witchofthedogs.livejournal.com]

The picture? Made me giggle on a very cold, nasty, icy morning.

Thank you!

[britishcowgirl.livejournal.com]

Photos of the bees! Pls!

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

You bet! :D

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Hmmm I don't know of any. Almonds apparently need very very specific climatic conditions, which is why Lebanon and central California do almost all the world production.

[kawanee.livejournal.com]

Am now following you on Twitter. :)

And I love almonds. I do not, however, love bees. I admire anybody who has the nerve to work around them. I've got a major phobia of all insects that sting: bees, wasps, hornets and horseflies (yes I know those just bite). I tend to flail/run and scream at whoever's with me to "Get it away from me!" or "Kill it!" or "Make it go away!" and I usually end up in (or close to) tears if they are unable to do so.

[erisian-fields.livejournal.com]

You got stung 130 times and aren't deathly allergic?

[banzai2326.livejournal.com]

So, is a'monds pronounced like a short A (AAH-munds) or like a short O (AWW-munds)?

a'mon's

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about it, and its a lot more like "amens." Not the wild baptist "EY-men!" but more like a quiet conversational lutheran "ahmen." The D definitely seems to have dropps off along with the L.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

I hate flies. Flies, as one knows, land on shit. So if I feel something land on me I'm like "is that a fly or a bee?!" cause if its a good ole member of order hymnoptera I'm not going to do anything (after all, you're more likely to get stung trying to swat it then if you just ignore it), but if its a fly I want it to get the fuck away from me.

Stings

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

I'm told the way it works is that the more you get stung but don't exceed your tolerance, the higher your tolerance goes, but as soon as you exceed it, your tolerance goes DOWN and you get more allergic. I think the very large number of times I got stung just a few times a day pushed my tolerance up enough to be above 130.

The guy I was working with at the time is a professor of entomology and has seen his share of allergic reactions (he's the one who explained the above theory to me), he said it looked like I was just below my tolerance level.

Additionally the lethal dose for your average person (LD50) of bee stings is 10 per pound of body weight, so the 130 stings would have been about 10% of the LD50 for me, which is kind of scary.