Wildflower Meadows has ten years of experience in providing outstanding service and delivering strong, disease-free bees for the avocado pollination season. We use the highest-quality disease-resistant queens, and maintain the highest standards for honeybee health.
Get Higher Yield
Through Better Avocado Pollination
It is no secret that good pollination improves both the yield and quality of avocados. Although avocados are partially self-pollinating, visits by honeybees have been proven beneficial because honeybees transfer large amounts of avocado pollen from flower to flower. In the event there were no honeybees, it has been estimated that up to 90% of an avocado crop would be lost .
Obviously, in San Diego County as well as other areas in Southern California, it is possible to have some avocado tree pollination without honeybees being located in the grove. Some of the avocado flowers are self-pollinating and the remaining avocado pollination is done for free by the natural and neighboring bee population.
Nevertheless, it is naïve to assume that neighboring bees will adequately handle the pollination of your avocado trees to achieve maximum production. First, there may not be as many nearby honeybees as you think. Due to ongoing battles with mites, other exotic parasites and diseases, the number of managed honeybee colonies in the United States has been decreasing annually. Further, for the same reasons, the number of feral honeybees has also declined dramatically – up to 75% in some areas of California. Second, even if there are neighboring honeybees, the fact is, during the avocado flowering season there are other competing flowers blooming simultaneously that are far more attractive to honeybees, such as oranges, mustard, and wild sage. Bees typically prefer to visit these flowers before they work avocado flowers.
The best way to overcome these obstacles is to ensure a high number of healthy, managed honeybees placed directly into your grove. The bottom line is that the most successful commercial avocado growers contract to rent thousands of beehives for improved avocado pollination and yield. An estimated 105,000 beehives per year are rented in the United States specifically to improve avocado pollination. Typically, Southern California avocado growers provide one beehive for every 1.5 acres.
For some avocado growers, it may be possible to “rent” a limited number of honeybee colonies without paying a pollination fee. If a location is favorable to the beekeeper (has truck access, is flat, is mostly free from pesticide spraying) and the grower allows the bees to stay onsite during non-blooming months of the year, many beekeepers will place bees free of charge in exchange for this level of access. Typically, the avocado growers who have to pay a pollination fee are those who want the bees only during March through May, or have limited or difficult-to-access sites for the colonies or beekeeper.
There is no denying the benefit of honeybees to improving avocado pollination. Even within a grove, it is almost a certainty that the trees nearest the beehives inevitably are the heaviest in the grove with fruit. It is not unheard of to witness groves improve production upwards of 50% simply by placing an abundance of strong honeybee colonies in the grove.
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