Bee haulers: Michigan needs you

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If Mark Longstroth, writing in the Western Farm Press last week, is right, early Spring growth over much of the U.S. East and Midwest has bee haulers in overdrive trying to keep up with demand for hives to pollinate fruit trees in groves far and wide.

“Most of the bees that pollinate Michigan fruit crops either overwintered in Florida or just finished pollinating almonds in California,” Longstroth wrote. “One problem is trucking. Most of the truckers that haul bees are booked.”

That so? It’s been quite a while since I talked to a bee hauler, though I know that the business is a touchy one, requiring movement only at certain times of the day and a fairly high degree of expertise in hive handling — we’ve seen at least the consequence of a lack of such expertise, in any case, when some neglected hives took their revenge out on a bystanding bear.

Anyone reading who’s done this sort of work, or is doing it now? Demand for your services high this year thus far?

Do share.