Billions of bees buzz the almond trees.

Wherever we are in the country, we listen to the ABC radio. Our current house sit has the radio tuned into a local station, so we listen to that sometimes, but you can always find the ABC to listen to at night, and on Sunday  mornings.  We often listen to Macca on Sunday all over, from early morning to 10 am. 

He had some very interesting snippets on his program yesterday. There is currnently a whole bunch of trucks moving towards farms in North West Victoria full of bee hives. They travel at night when the bees are quiet and stay put during the day, giving them a little bit of exercise and water. They are all going to pollinate the almond trees.

Here is a direct quote from the ABC website http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/201207/s3547385.htm

"The annual pilgrimage to pollinate 11,000 hectares of crop, this year will involve about 180 beekeepers, with 110,000 bee hives.

And the man who knows where every hive is, is pollination coordinator Trevor Monson.

He says the logistics of it can start to blow his mind, but it's all worth it.

"You know the stress gets at you every now and then, but then when all the blossoms come out and on a warm day and all the bees are happily buzzing around, well then, then you forget about it all and just all comes together." "

There are a couple of photos on the website too, and a couple of mp3 files with more information. I thought it was amazing that they would transport thousands of full behives all over the country to pollinate fruit trees like that.  I guess when it is finished they pack up their hives and take them home again. Maybe they visit other places too? I don't know.