Our California Girls!

This year, just like last year, we sent our bees to California for the winter.  A fellow beekeeper and good friend takes a couple hundred of his hives, plus our 6, and they go for the almond pollination out in California.   The bees are somewhere around Fresno.   It's a bit of a gamble taking bees out there, but at least they don't have to try to make the harsh winters up here.   Last year, however, most beekeepers including us, lost at least half of their hives because of the rains of 'biblical proportions' out there.   We lost 7 out of 8 hives.  For a few weeks they had anywhere from 8 to 10 inches a DAY of rain!!  The hives were wet and moldy.  But the Good Lord spared one hive for us to start with, and we ended up with a fairly good honey year anyway.   This year, the problem is lack of rain!   Things are very, very dry out in California right now.    Our friend Josh says the hives are just about all out in the almond groves now.   Almond growers need the bees for pollination and pay beekeepers all over the country to bring bees out there.  But because of the lack of rain, Josh says the dry weather is starting to impact the farming out here. The people in control of the irrigation are voting on whether to let the farmers water their crops or let them suffer some  losses. The farmers have prepaid for the water in a rollover program, but the state may go back on their word and leave them without that water. The farmers would then not only lose the water, but the millions of dollars invested in it. We need to pray for rain for California!  The farmers out there need a good almond crop, and we need our bees to come back home in the spring - healthy, strong,  and ready to go to work for us!!  Here are a couple photos of the insides of our hives out in Fresno.

Plenty of bees in this hive!

This hive is working on a pollen patty to eat until they can get to the almond blossoms.