© 2012 Shawn Colvin & Patty Griffin
By: John Miller
In early February, 2026 there is an oversupply of lumber in California almond orchards.
In mid-February there will be far less lumber, and far fewer strong colonies for rent – at any price. The phenomena is easily tracked on social media, too many bees! A week later? Where are all the bees? Also, track the number of stolen hives reports, also on social media with a couple clicks. It’s like this every year; year after year. 2025 was the outlier – with massive losses. Looks like the losses are less disastrous in 2026 than in 2025 – but plenty of hardship remains.
Things are changing. The cell phone, with the available apps, and the ability to track individual colonies across time – and across a continent from Minnesota to California to Texas to Florida to Maine to a specific orchard in Merced County is something new. Is it better? We will see.
I’ve done the Native Migrant Tour for 50 years; and I did it again in 2026 almonds, when the H-2A help was again delayed. (* To understand Native Migrant term, listen to Johnny Cash, I’ve Been Everywhere, ©Geoff Mack, 1959). I don’t mind doing the work, catching the loads, delivering a few; working a bunch of bees prior to bloom – none of that bothers me – except I’m no longer 50 years younger. Fingers don’t function as well. Confident steps in the dark are more cautious. Eyes dim. Scrambling atop a load or for that matter, just the bed of the truck is now a measured exercise. I love the bees. Always will. I don’t like getting old.
Things are changing – and not changing. When an overloaded tonner hits the unseen drainage ditch, in the night, in the fog, even if it’s only 6 inches deep at 6 mph – will pitch hives from the (untied) front of the load, across the hood, maybe the windshield; and occasionally a mirror become casualties. Gravity is stronger in the night, in the fog, stacked three high (and if no one is looking – four high! Just to say you did it.) Accidents are possible, gravity is strong.
An important part of some outfits are readable, scannable identification tags – and the readers capable of scanning at the same speed as a grocery store scanner. Hand-held, these scanners replaced the 2025 camera-held scanners; allowing crews to identify the dead colony the thriving colony – and maybe in the future the Why? Why did a colony thrive, or fail, or fail to thrive? These investments must actually provide a benefit to the old, analog style of keeping orchard notes on the back of a Kleenex box – why adopt the tech? The Boomer generation now timing out of beekeeping turn the future to a succeeding generation. Granular hive data will soon provide a competitive edge to early adopters. For many years, the standard grades of A, B, C, D, (Dead, just does not know it yet) & M (muerto) worked fine. These marks are forward looking data, because after first round inspections, a lot of ‘D’s & ‘M’s’ are removed from orchards. The ‘A’ colony will boost the ‘C’ colony prior to hive inspections. The ‘D’ colony may be boosted if there are more A’s than C’s. This method won’t work for everyone – but a lot of beekeepers save themselves a lot of work and a lot of swarming by equalizing colonies in the almonds before February 20. The ideal: Less than 12% D’s and M’s.
The scanner? The I.D. tags? Look backwards to inform the beekeeper more about the What, When, Where, & Why. Great, but us old bent back and bent hive toolers can tell the scanner a lot too. Starvation is obvious. Spotting. Queenless. The old-timers ‘thin-slice the data’ upon opening the colony for: Behavior, Sound, Aroma, Heft, Feeder Detritus, Bottom Board Clean, Hygiene, Stores – and the intangibles. Incoming pollen, Purposeful flight, the morning Scouts returning with first field reports (Individual bees lack hand-held forage scanners – but provide detailed data to the colony upon return from the field – the data being decidedly analog.) The observant beekeeper knows no almond pollen is yet available February 1 – but carefully notes the color and abundance/scarcity of returning scouts pollen pellets size and abundance.
The beekeeping tech will find its place, as will the art of beekeeping retain its place.
I keep writing about the pace of change. California State Beekeepers Assn. (CSBA) is a case in point. A younger generation of beekeeper now leads the organization. CSBA has an auction, like every other impoverished bee group. Thursday, November 20, 2025 the CSBA auction generated $106,000 – which goes to the CSBA Research Committee capably chaired by Bryan Ashurst. This was different. A different generation emerged, taking the opportunity to invest in the industry – meaningfully bidding for near-meaningful auction items. Congratulations to this younger, stronger, tech-savvy generation. The tools and practices of 20th Century beekeeping fade as the tools and practices of the 21st Century beekeeping emerge.
Kim Flottum used to often say, ‘Keep your hive tool sharp.’ It was more a metaphor than an instruction. Recently, I’ve asked tribal elders, Who are the great thinkers in beekeeping?
It’s easy to identify many of earlier generation thinkers. Discoveries large and small seeped into beekeeping. Railroads and Interstates. Hydraulics and Electricity. Computers and all that now explodes on the scene. For those I’ve quizzed, the ask is over. It’s foolish to list the Great Beekeeping Thinkers. I believe it’s now all the beekeepers. Learning at their own pace, contributing at the bee meetings, contemplating the speaker and the writer, finding their own wisdom at their own pace. Another example of big thinking was a simple phrase my departed friend, Steve Conlon, of Proctor, W. Virginia once shared, ‘People are only capable of learning what they are capable of learning.’ Brilliant.
Individually, and as a community, we are only capable of learning what we are capable of learning. That does not mean anyone has a corner on wisdom, or the application thereof.
For this short time on earth – enjoy the community of beekeepers and the wisdom of the colony. The more I know about bees, the less I know about bees.