A truck driver is hauling an unusual load across the country this week as a way to keep almond farming operations in California up and running – bees – 18 million of them.
Earlier this week, a truck driver pulled up to a bee farm in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida to pick up 600 beehives housing approximately 18 million bees. Now, the truck driver and insects are making their way out to California, where the bees will help to pollinate the state’s almond trees.
Sierra Malnove, owner and founder of Creamed Honey Company in Palm Beach Gardens, says that it’s a risky journey, so much so that she considers the trucker now ‘a part of the family’ if she’s “trusting him with 18 million bees.”
“We’ve been working all week to prep the bees,” Malnove said. “California is very strict and very tricky. To get our bees in, they require you to send bees on very clean pallets with no other foreign debris.”
Even if the bees make it safely to the state of California, Malnove says getting them past the checkpoint is a whole other matter.
“Once they get to that AG station on the California border, they will inspect the semi-truck,” said Malnove. “If they find any ants at all, they will refuse the load and send it back.”
Malnove’s bees aren’t the only ones making their way to California, a total of 2 million beehives are expected to be trucked in this year as major almond growers in California’s 1.6 million acre Central Valley are urging beekeepers across the country to send their healthy hives to almond orchards to help with production.