Australian almond growers are facing a season of uncertainty as the varroa mite continues to tear through the country's bee population. The parasite has wiped out at least 60 percent of hives, and because so many crops depend on bees for pollination, its rapid spread has left producers deeply worried about the months ahead.
The mite has also devastated many beekeeping businesses, the very operations that growers rely on to pollinate their orchards. For almond producers in particular, the timing is critical, with the flowering season only weeks away and no real substitute for the work that bees perform in the field.
Almond grower Neil Bennett explained that he relies solely on bees to grow his crop, describing them as the key to maximising the potential of the flowers that bloom each year. To support them, he prepares the orchard as best he can, providing a pollen source such as wildflowers or a flowering cover crop to give the bees some variety, along with water for when they arrive.
The bees are expected to move in around the end of July and to finish their work by the end of August. Each year, growers like Bennett hire hives from a beekeeper and place them in the orchard for roughly four to six weeks, leaning on what he called nature simply doing its thing as the insects move from flower to flower.
This year, however, his concerns go beyond the number of hives he can secure. Bennett pointed to the strength and general health of the bees themselves, noting that it has been a poor season for beekeepers. Limited floral resources have made it harder for them to build up their hives, and some have been battling bushfires that burnt out their sites, leaving the bees coming in underdone for what he likened to a marathon.
The grower usually brings in around 110 hives, but he is worried not only about reaching that number but also about the actual strength of the colonies. At present, he said, there are no real alternatives to bees for almonds. While other crops such as kiwifruit have developed artificial pollination methods, and there has been some experimentation with blowflies, almonds still depend wholly and solely on bees.
Despite the pressure, Bennett remains cautiously optimistic that a way forward will be found. He noted that the rest of the world has learned to live with the varroa mite, a pest Australia had largely avoided until the past couple of years. Managing it, he acknowledged, will take time and has placed extra strain on both beekeepers and the growers who depend on them, but he expressed confidence that the industry can move forward.