
Bees are essential to the almond industry, and billions are dying in the process - prostoalex
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/07/honeybees-deaths-almonds-hives-aoe
======
CameronNemo
Seems the problem is pesticide use, not necessarily almond cultivation.
Perhaps I am splitting hairs, but there are few good protein sources available
today and tree nuts are plentiful in my region. It is hard to imagine that
those cow farms in the central valley and elsewhere are any more moral or
sustainable.

~~~
torrance
I think the issue with almonds is that by growing them in massive monoculture
you create bee deserts for the majority of the year when the almonds aren't
flowering. Once the flowers disappear, any remaining bees will starve until
the next year. So this criticism could be leveled essentially against almost
any large scale monoculture crop.

I'd be interested to know why almonds (and avocados) are usually highlighted
here. Are other flowering crops typically grown in more diverse environments?

~~~
lonelappde
Which other crops rely on bee pollination? Soy? Corn? Fruits?

~~~
adrian_mrd
A lot:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crop_plants_pollinat...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crop_plants_pollinated_by_bees)

------
jimnotgym
One might wonder when looking at the almond monoculture, which looks like some
kind of apocalypse, whether there isn't an alternative. How about seeding wild
flowers between the rows, for instance, so bees can actually live there?

In Europe it has become common to seed a headland around crops that is bug
friendly, for one example. There are financial incentives for this in the
subsidy too.

~~~
fredgrott
its not just wild flowers..

fro bees to sruvive winter its

vetch mustard goldenrod alfa

that will supply the full spring to fall diet for bees

I put it in my father's garden every year as farmers have killed all that by
the roadside

~~~
mft_
Is there a typo in “vetch mustard goldenrod alfa”?

Googling it brings up this thread and your comment as the top hit...

~~~
Pfhreak
It's a (poorly formatted) list of plants that bloom at different times.

------
antirez
Bees are not essential to the almond industry in general, but to the US almond
industry in particular because US is focusing on almond varieties that are not
the best nor auto-compatible (so they need bees to pollinate), but have the
economic advantage of having a very good ratio between the weight of shell
over the seed inside. This is good to get the maximum earning, but is bad both
for human health because the thin shell allows for the almonds to be more
easily contaminated, and for bees because of what the article says.

~~~
OrgNet
in other words, CA could not have chosen a worst crop to grow (I heard that it
also requires a lot of water to grow, something that CA is short on)

~~~
antirez
Oh I forgot to mention water! Actually almonds can grow almost without any
water at all, this is how we do it in Sicily, but certain varieties will yield
2x product if you use water. Hence in CA usually water is used, but with
systems to use as little as possible.

~~~
Sharlin
It makes me irrationally angry how often things could be done sustainably but
of course aren’t because there’s no strong enough incentive to care about
negative externalities.

~~~
GrayTextIsTruth
California growing 80% of the worlds almond a isn’t sustainable. It used
California water and it’s the depleting the nutrients in the soil.

~~~
jelliclesfarm
And they transport almond milk in cartons all over that is worse. The
packaging and the space it takes for transport and the protocol for liquid
transporting and the carbon foot print of pasteurization and so much more are
entirely unnecessary because almond milk is so easy to make from a
powder/almond meal.

But consumers are used to pouring it from a carton. Consumer education is so
essential.

------
asdff
Almonds use way too much water and they shouldn't be grown in California. Over
a gallon of water is needed to grow 1 almond.

[https://www.paesta.psu.edu/podcast/how-much-water-does-it-
re...](https://www.paesta.psu.edu/podcast/how-much-water-does-it-really-take-
grow-almonds-paesta-podcast-series-episode-43)

~~~
mschuster91
Why is the water "wasted"? It doesn't go away like burning fuel or become
irreversibly contaminated in the process.

~~~
Merrill
>19%: The Great Water-Power Wake-Up Call

>A few years back, number crunchers at the California Energy Commission tried
to add up how much electrical power (and other forms of energy) goes into
using water in California. The bottom line number they came up with: 19%. That
is, nearly a fifth of all the power generated in California — as well as huge
quantities of natural gas and diesel fuel consumed in the state — goes into
water-related uses.

[http://ww2.kqed.org/climatewatch/2012/06/10/19-percent-
calif...](http://ww2.kqed.org/climatewatch/2012/06/10/19-percent-californias-
great-water-power-wake-up-call/)

Irrigation is a CO2 emitter - especially when water is transported all the way
from the Colorado River to California farms.

~~~
lonelappde
Is that a lot? I can't imagine a better use for power than sustaining the
basic necessity of life.

~~~
himlion
The basic necessity of life: "almonds".

~~~
perl4ever
The 19% figure refers to just almonds?

~~~
himlion
No, it was a tongue in cheek comment, but the majority of that figure is used
for high value cash crops, not for basic necessities.

------
40four
The article fails to mention an of the viruses that are carried by the Varroa
mite. The problem in not only the mites physically attacking the bees, but the
proliferation of a suite of viruses they carry. One that is particularly
harmful is the 'Deformed wing virus' (DWV) [0].

Luckily there are some promising developments on this front. Research efforts
led by Paul Stamets [1] have developed an extract derived from mushrooms that,
when fed to the bee colonies, have been shown to drastically reduce DWV and
Lake Sinai virus.[2]

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deformed_wing_virus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deformed_wing_virus)
[1] [https://fungi.com/pages/bees](https://fungi.com/pages/bees) [2]
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-32194-8](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-32194-8)

------
aaron695
There is nothing coherent about the article.

Ok, lets make an almond tree that doesn't need bee's.

Now we'll have less bee keepers, since they will lose the work they are doing,
and less bees.

Tomorrows article will be about bee collapses and how that matters.

Nothing in the article points to the almond process that's killing bees. It
implies other activities in California are responsible perhaps we need to look
there.

If they are trying to make a claim a bees life matters, then why does it
matter over a grasshopper that's also killed by the pesticides?

~~~
fourthark
They buried it

 _Pesticides are used for all kinds of crops across the state, but the almond,
at 35m lb a year, is doused with greater absolute quantities than any other.
One of the most widely applied pesticides is the herbicide glyphosate (AKA
Roundup), which is a staple of large-scale almond growers and has been shown
to be lethal to bees as well as cause cancer in humans. (The maker, Bayer-
owned Monsanto, denies the cancer link when people use Roundup at the
prescribed dosage. So far this year three US courts have found in favour of
glyphosate users who developed forms of lymphoma; thousands more cases are
pending.)_

 _On top of the threat of pesticides, almond pollination is uniquely demanding
for bees because colonies are aroused from winter dormancy about one to two
months earlier than is natural. The sheer quantity of hives required far
exceeds that of other crops – apples, America’s second-largest pollination
crop, use only one-tenth the number of bees. And the bees are concentrated in
one geographic region at the same time, exponentially increasing the risk of
spreading sickness._

~~~
pfdietz
Glyphosate has been shown to be lethal to bees? Weird, since it targets an
enzyme that only appears in non-animals.

Maybe they meant it's lethal to bees if you drop the bottle on one.

~~~
fourthark
Unintended consequences can happen. Looks like it’s an active debate.

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Glyphosate+bees&t=fpas&ia=web](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Glyphosate+bees&t=fpas&ia=web)

------
protomyth
North Dakota (the top honey producing state in the USA) has a special section
of its website for honey bees[1] and has a document called "NORTH DAKOTA
POLLINATOR PLAN"[2] that might give some perspective from the beekeeper and
state side.

1) [https://www.nd.gov/ndda/plant-industries/apiary-honey-
bees](https://www.nd.gov/ndda/plant-industries/apiary-honey-bees)

2)
[https://www.nd.gov/ndda/sites/default/files/legacy/resource/...](https://www.nd.gov/ndda/sites/default/files/legacy/resource/ND%20Pollinator%20Plan%202016.pdf)

------
ada1981
Easy fix is to switch to Hemp or Oat Milk. I find them more interesting and I
imagine hemp milk isn’t much of an issue for bees.

------
jkoudys
I'm definitely going to The Bad Place when I die, with all that almond milk I
drink.

------
aritmo
The honey bee is the Western honey bee. Although some call to it the European
honey bee, it is not a "bad import from Europe".

This bee originated from Africa or Asia, before it got domesticated.

------
redis_mlc
Word around Cali is that almonds are basically a way to export fresh water to
China in a subsidized, condensed format.

Something to think about in an arid region.

------
shanev
I hope we are learning that substituting fake things for real things often
have catastrophic effects. If fake meat becomes popular, this will get much
worse. Food production is complex. Substituting one thing for another may seem
like a good idea on the surface, but it ignores second order effects.

------
Ghjklov
Obsession is an interesting way to characterize one of the great alternatives
to cow's milk for people who cannot consume dairy or refuse to support the
torture of cows for their milk. The livelihood of bees or climate change? The
duality of man.

~~~
anonymoushn
Growing almonds in California is pretty unethical. Have you tried oat milk?

~~~
markdown
Oat milk? Shouldn't that be oat juice?

Oats aren't animals that produce milk for their offspring.

~~~
Jon_Lowtek
it's a marketing thing... you wouldn't understand.

~~~
brabel
In most of Europe, you cannot call plant-based drinks milk, as that's a
misleading name, as pointed out... they have to call it what it is, e.g.
"almond drink", "soy drink" etc..

~~~
wizzwizz4
Are you sure? I'm fairly sure that was just a US FDA thing – “milk” has been
used to describe sap and juices in Europe for many, many years – iirc that's
where the word “lettuce” comes from.

~~~
markdown
"the word “milk” is a protected denomination reserved only for mammary
secretions. (This stipulation is found in the EU’s Single CMO Regulation)" \-
[http://www.ensa-eu.org/eu-legislation/food-labeling/](http://www.ensa-
eu.org/eu-legislation/food-labeling/)

~~~
TomMarius
I've just bought some wheat, rice and almond milk in Prague, CZ. The thing is
that this rule applies only if it's not known that it is a metaphor - e.g.
there is a "rum drink" that is not a rum and it used to be called "tuzemsky
rum" (local rum), now it's "tuzemak" (abbreviation of the first word); similar
situations was with different kinds of fruit jams. At the same time, almond
milk... well, everyone knows almond tree is not a cow.

------
INTPenis
From my perspective over here in Malmö, Sweden it's sort of funny how
americans have obsessed with Almond milk. The memes, the taunts and so on.

Nobody I know drinks almond milk. We drink oat milk. The best manufacturer of
oat replacement products for dairy is from this region of Sweden, Oatly. They
make oat drinks, creams and ice cream.

Personally at 35 I've stopped drinking milk altogether because it's a drink
for juveniles. So I only use oat milk replacement in cooking.

------
gridlockd
Of course billions of bees are dying every year, because 99.9% of bees don't
live longer than six months.

~~~
Pfhreak
I suspect that is not what this article is considering. Bees are usually able
to sustain their populations, "dying" in this context implies "and not being
replaced with new brood".

~~~
gridlockd
> ..."dying" in this context implies "and not being replaced with new brood".

No it doesn't. The bees that pollinate almonds are bred by beekeepers and sent
out for this exact purpose. They will be replaced as long as the demand for
their service remains.

~~~
Pfhreak
Yeah, it does. The article is explicitly about colonies dying at an
unexpectedly high rate.

> By October, 150 of Arp’s hives had been wiped out by mites, 12% of his
> inventory in just a few months.

> Commercial beekeepers who send their hives to the almond farms are seeing
> their bees die in record numbers, and nothing they do seems to stop the
> decline.

> This is more than one-third of commercial US bee colonies...

> In the early 1980s, when Arp was just selling honey, he would lose about 5%
> of his hives per year to disease or weather conditions. Around 2000, Arp’s
> bees started dying in greater numbers.

> First, he experienced a nearly 100% loss of his hives from an infestation of
> tracheal mites.

~~~
gridlockd
> Yeah, it does.

It doesn't. These losses will be replaced by the keepers.

> In the early 1980s, when Arp was just selling honey, he would lose about 5%
> of his hives per year to disease or weather conditions. Around 2000, Arp’s
> bees started dying in greater numbers.

If this guy has been losing 5-10% of his colonies for forty years, how is he
still in businesses? The bees/colonies get _replaced_ , of course.

------
ars
This article doesn't seem to care all that much about accuracy. They just care
about being dramatic.

For example: "glyphosate ... has been shown to be lethal to bees as well as
cause cancer in humans"

Neither clause is true.

I don't feel like doing a line by line of the rest, but this is a garbage
article.

~~~
hactually
[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10311-017-0689-0](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10311-017-0689-0)

Glyphosate/RoundUp etc has been shown to have high toxicity for bees and many
other animals including humans.

It _was_ considered safe, new data and better science has changed that stance.
The article isn't garbage.

~~~
eitland
Supporting this. I grew up with this stuff and while the ones I know would
always use protective gear it _was_ considered safe and the protection was
used just to be really sure it seemed.

Today the situation is a lot more nuanced.

...and as I write this I think I could feel the smell of roundup or another
herbicide, so yeah I've been exposed it :-/

