For most this week’s weather change from sunny and warm to dreary pretty much just means you need to add an umbrella to your attire – for the North State’s almond farmers it’s a little more concerning. Their trees are currently in bloom and the bees that fly around pollinating them only fly when the weather is good.
Dani Lightle is an orchard systems advisor for the UC Cooperative Extension who covers Glenn, Butte and Tehama counties. She says in order for bees to fly they need winds that are less than 10 to 15 miles an hour and temperatures above about 55 degrees. Not the kind of weather we’re seeing now.
“The good news is that a good chunk of bloom we’ve had really good bee conditions and after we get through this little storm in the next day or so we should return back to bee conditions,” Lightle said.
Lightle says in general a couple of bad bee flying days shouldn’t totally kill the crop for the year. She says besides this short stint of bad bee flying weather pollination conditions have been great for the year.
The trees have bloomed quickly and most at the same time – which makes it easy for necessary cross-pollination to occur.
