Tag Archives: pollination

54 Ron Miksha – Crop Pollination: Past, Present and Future

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Ron Miksha on PolliNation with Andony Melathopoulos

Ron has worked with honey bees since childhood, producing a million pounds of honey and thousands of queens and packages. He has had bee farms in Pennsylvania, Florida, Saskatchewan, and Alberta and has migrated bees for pollination in the eastern USA. His comb honey farm in southern Alberta produced 50,000 comb sections a year. Presently, Ron is teaching beekeeping and bee economics and he is studying ecology at the University of Calgary. In his free time, Ron writes about bees, science, society, and comb honey production in bee journals, magazines, and on his bad beekeeping blog. Ron is kept in Calgary by his wife, two teenagers, and a couple of backyard beehives.

Listen in to learn the evolution of migratory beekeepers since the 1970’s, and why Ron believes that our current pollination system isn’t sustainable.

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“We can do more with fewer acres by using the honeybees, and they’re being provided by commercial beekeepers.” – Ron Miksha

Show Notes:

  • How Ron got started in beekeeping and crop pollination
  • How pollination’s role with beekeepers has changed since Ron started
  • Why it paid so differently on different coasts in the early days of pollination
  • How American infrastructure development helped early migratory beekeepers and pollinators
  • Why the economy’s rising inflation led to a larger almond crop
  • Why farmers initially needed so much convincing that they needed pollinators for their crops
  • How migratory bees have single-handedly changed the almond crop in California for the better
  • What the key crops for beekeepers were and what they are now
  • How migratory beekeeping is hard on the bees
  • Why the new opportunities for beekeepers is also often extremely difficult for them
  • The risks and advantages of being a migratory beekeeper
  • The future of migratory beekeeping and why Ron thinks it is not currently sustainable
  • How new innovation in agriculture may prove pollinators to be obsolete

“My father said, ‘you’ve got a drivers license and three hundred hives of bees, go do it’.” – Ron Miksha

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32 Matt Arrington – Pollinating Blueberries in the Pacific Northwest

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Matt Arrington on PolliNation with Andony Melathopoulos

Matt Arrington recently graduated with a Ph.D. in horticulture from Washington State University. He has experience in applied plant research with small fruit and tree fruit.

Matt is currently working with Dr. Lisa DeVetter at the Small Fruit Horticulture program in Mount Vernon, Washington as a graduate research assistant. Key projects he is involved with include pollination and fruit set improvement in highbush blueberry.

Listen in to learn about highbush blueberries, and how honeybees can greatly benefit the pollination and harvest of your plants.

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“[Blueberries bloom] in the spring, when we usually have fairly heavy rainfall, low temperatures, windstorms, and those are all environmental conditions that are really not good for foraging activities, especially in honeybees.” – Matt Arrington

Show Notes:

  • What you need to know about high bush blueberries
  • The role of pollinators for high bush blueberries
  • Why insect pollination is so crucial for blueberries
  • The advantages of having a manager for your pollinators
  • What stocking rates are for and how they are set
  • Why blueberry growers should consider using more honeybees
  • Why attractants are used and what they are made of

”I’ll see [bumble bees] out really early in the season. They’ll be out pollinating while there’s still snow on the ground, and I’ll come home from work in the evening when it’s dark and you’ll hear them still in the bush.” – Matt Arrington

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05 Mike Burgett – Honeybee Pollination Markets

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Mike Burgett is the Emeritus Professor of Entomology at OSU, where he has taught since 1974.

He has conducted a huge amount of work on apiculture research, including a survey of beekeepers and growers in the Pacific Northwest of the US, which is our main topic for today.

Today we’ll discuss pollination markets as they are today, the history of beekeepers in this region and the unique pollination scenarios in the Pacific Northwest.

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“I wanted to know how much of a beekeeper’s income is dependent on pollination rental.” – Mike Burgett

Show Notes:

  • Where bees are being used for pollination in the Pacific Northwest
  • The fruit industries that need controlled pollination
  • Why the almond industry in California has an effect on commercial beekeepers in Oregon and Washington
  • How many colonies are needed to pollinate certain crops in the Pacific Northwest
  • Why Mike started the survey of local pollination markets in the Western US
  • The trends that he has seen in the last 30 years, and how commercial beekeepers stay profitable
  • How the price of pollination fees has changed
  • What has happened to the almond industry and why prices have increased so much
  • Why it’s a profitable time to be a beekeeper
  • The work that he has done in Southeast Asia with bees

“Your renting bees not to guarantee a crop. You’re renting bees to guarantee against crop failure. Pollination is the cheapest crop insurance a grower can get.” – Mike Burgett

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