So, most commercial almond orchards actually ship in bees from beekeepers to pollinate them every year, and as you might assume, the bees aren’t having a good time. Having their hives transported long distances is extremely stressful for them (notably, bees won’t poop inside their hive, and having to hold it in for hours cause severe health issues) the fact that they’re pollinating a monoculture is detrimental to their overall health, and these intense pollination sessions drastically reduce the lifespans of the worker bees.
Actually, this isn’t just for almonds, though that’s the most infamous. Plenty of crops rely on this practice.
What are your thoughts? Are these plant-based foods not vegan because animals were exploited in their production? How, if at all, would your thoughts differ for an orchard that had local bees on site instead of shipping bees in? I don’t think any large scale orchard relies on wild bees, so that’s probably not applicable unless you’re buying super local, like, your friend who has an almond tree in their back yard local.
thanks for the thought-provoking post. here are a few links from the rabbit hole it sent me down:
(i am going to keep eating almonds, and actually now after reading that last link (despite suspecting it might be industry propaganda) I feel a bit less bad about the water usage than I did before.)
one more link, here is a USDA report from last year Honey Bees on the Move: From Pollination to Honey Production and Back about commercial pollination services, which that almonds-sustainability article cites for its statement “More than 68% of all commercial honey bee colonies in the United States are used to pollinate almond orchards”.