Pollination Services

Types of Pollination Available with Blue Orchard Bees

Pacific Pollination offers the following types of pollination services with blue orchard bees:

• Bee management and emergence
• Pollination of crops
• Bee ranching
• Bee sales and equipment

Yield is the name of the game for growers of so many crops, but none more so than Californian almond growers. One of their headaches is finding the best types of pollination, because poor pollination equals a poor crop.

The almond is a challenging crop, flowering very early in the year, when conditions are difficult for pollinators. Wild pollinators are almost non-existent in the orchards, so over a million hives of honeybees are trucked from across the continent into California every year. And yet the number of honeybee colonies has been in decline for many years. At the same time, ever greater acreages of almonds have been planted.

Rental fees have been climbing as beekeepers struggle to maintain populations in the face of the bewildering colony collapse disorder.

What option does the grower have? None – until recently. Now Pacific Pollination's innovative approach to commercial pollination brings the much talked-about blue orchard bee, also known as Osmia lignaria, to the Central Valley of California. These solitary bees, native to the western USA, are superb pollinators, and can be used on their own, or alongside honeybees. Blue orchard bees provide all types of pollination-not only for almonds but plums, cherries, apples, strawberries, pears, and a host of other crops.

Whether you want to hire our blue orchard bees for almond pollination, or want our assistance to set up your own complete pollination operation, speak to us. If we can help, we will.