John Miller
Just after mid-August, 2021, Western Growers Assn. sponsored a virtual meeting with their members and Silicon Valley investors interested in Agricultural assets.
The challenge was to lead a broad discussion about technology and beekeeping.
“Seeds of Our Future 2021: The Flight of the Honey Bees.”
I helped frame up ideas for the event. I did not present at the event. This is an idea I want to share with folks who think they support Honey bees through donations – but don’t.
Western Growers Assn. is an enormous outfit, some of the largest production agriculture outfits on earth. Their customers [pretty much everyone who eats] shop for safe, nutritious food.
Western Growers are challenged by a rapidly changing environment in many areas. To attract investors, and to grow the business of growing food for a hungry planet, Western Growers increasingly employs technology. The technology sector has the ability to improve farm performance.
Where do honey bees and technology fit into the picture? Beekeeping is an ancient practice based on learned experience with a social insect, our Western Honey bee.
Of the 4,000 or so identified species of solitary bees – beyond confined vegetable growth facilities – none of the solitary bees perform like the Western Honey bee. There is a reason our honey bee is widely regarded as the most beneficial insect on earth.
Western Growers: Pause before dashing off the next Save the Bees donation. What impact does our Western Honey bee have on Western Growers and their customers? How many in the audience use pollination services?
Quite a few. How many use solitary bees for pollination services?
How many use the Western Honey bee for pollination services?
What impact do the solitary, largely unmanageable, immovable bees have on Western Growers and their customers? What impact does our Western Honey bee have on Western Growers and their customers? The Western Honey bee is a generalist forager, able to pollinate a huge variety of plant blossoms. Our bee is manageable, flexible, the unquestioned global pollination champion for time immemorable. Humans picked the best bee – and the best bee picked us. Great deal, Best Deal Ever For Humans! Bees? Well, not so much, sometimes.
Project Apis m. is a bee research non-profit founded in 2006 when honey bees were in peril. Founded by Blue Diamond Chairman Dan Cummings, and Beekeepers – driven by peer-reviewed research supporting our Honey bee. There are a million non-profits in America. One non-profit is devoted to our Honeybee.
Where is Tech improving Beekeeping? Western Growers members contracting for pollination services on their crops can now engage with Beekeepers or Brokers for hive strength analytics. Almond fields can be mapped to optimize beehive placements. Hives can be monitored for a number of conditions.
Tech is not replacing benchmark truths shared by beekeepers and almond growers. Take the Number 2, for example. More and more growers know beekeepers with TWO or fewer Varroa destructor mites per 100 bee sample have better, healthier hives. More and more beekeepers know growers with TWO or fewer ‘stick-tights’ or post-harvest mummies per tree know those hygienic orchards are safer places for bees, fewer stick tights means fewer Navel Orange Worms means a lower risk of a pesticide application, and bee kills.
Hygienic beekeepers and Hygienic growers seek each other.
Tech will improve bee genetics. Honey bees mate openly, with some instances of instrumental insemination. Thus, it is difficult to predict a Queen Bee’s performance – she mates with several drones before her reign commences as the beehive’s mother. We know there are differences in these sub families – but we know nothing about optimizing the performance in honey bee families.
A cattleman can take a snippet of tissue from a cow or bull and technology can predict Expected Progeny Data. This does not harm the bovine. In Beekeeping, for us to analyze a queen bee – we must kill her, dissect her, and then ledger the data. Beekeeping genetics is a field ripe for technical solutions.
Before dashing off a donation supporting the insect Western Growers and their customers rely on – consider the Return on Investment. A donation made to a non-profit specifically supporting the Western Honey bee will support the Western Honey bee, and other species of bees rather than scattershot supporting all invertebrates. No one can support all invertebrates.
Western Growers carefully support improvements to production agriculture. Project Apis m. carefully supports the beneficial insect Western Growers and their customers rely on.
Pitting one bee against another bee is not conservation.
I have no real power; I am a beekeeper.
I am a witness to immense power; I am a beekeeper.
Support for Project Apis m. supports the bees that support Western Growers and their customers.
John Miller is a retired beekeeper and volunteer Project Apis m. Board Member. Board members are tasked with fundraising.
