The NYTimes has left out interesting details. First of all, the California almond crop is almost pathological in its demand for pollination. The entire 800k+

The NYTimes has left out interesting details. First of all, the California almond crop is almost pathological in its demand for pollination. The entire 800k+ acres must be pollinated pretty much on the same week, or the trees don't set fruit. So, that's weird, and it contributes to hive stress as the bee companies transport literally every beehive on the continent to California at once. Secondly, California's acres in bearing almonds has more than doubled in ten years. It's a classic agribusiness gold rush, where for some reason the growers are unable to restrain themselves from overproducing a single crop. Almond prices actually peaked in 2005. It takes 5 years for an almond orchard to bear fruit, so all the bonanza-chasers who planted after 2005 are just coming online. This will increase the stress placed on honeybee colonies by increasing the demand for pollination services. Third. It is an established fact that almond pollination works better in the presence of wild pollinators, which for California almond orchards means native honey bees and bumblebees. These pollinators are also capable of pollinating the crop by themselves, without Apis, except the growers have systematically poisoned them with pesticides and herbicides. Growers of organic almonds (which, by the way, market for 2-3x the price of conventional almonds) will eventually win this game by not poisoning their native pollinators, and because they maintain inter-row habitats for beneficial insects instead of the toxic bare soil that stands between the rows in a conventional orchard.