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Last August, as I stood in a field in North Dakota, hundreds of thousands of bees surrounded me. The chorus of their collective hum was soothing, almost mesmerizing.
It was an unlikely assignment for me, a reporter who covers energy for the Business desk of The New York Times.
The idea came to me months earlier, as I was returning home from a reporting trip for an article about a coal-fired power plant that a utility was converting into a solar farm. On my flight from Minneapolis to Los Angeles, I sat next to Jenna Budke, the daughter of migratory beekeepers. We struck up a conversation, and she told me about the challenges facing the honeybee industry, including climate change.
I knew I wanted to get in a beekeeper’s suit and learn more about honeybees.
After discussing the idea with my editor, I reached out to Ms. Budke. I told her The Times wanted to follow her parents along their journey to capture what migratory beekeeping looked like. She connected me with her parents, Nancy and Keith, the owners of Budke Bees.
I also began contacting researchers at the University of California, Davis, and Cornell University, as well as government agencies, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
I learned that bees were disappearing in large numbers. Today, honeybees are facing the worst colony collapse in U.S. history. And as much as 70 percent of colonies could be lost this year.
Climate change and carbon dioxide emissions have become essential subjects in my work as an energy reporter, as Americans choose which resources power their lives. The effects of climate change on bees, which play a critical role in the production of 100 different crops that we eat, is significant.
Hurricane Milton, which landed in Central Florida last year as a Category 3 storm, destroyed many queen bee breeders’ operations. Wildfires and atmospheric rivers in California have burned or drowned a number of bee colonies. Droughts and other extreme weather conditions have decimated vegetation and forage areas where bees used to gather pollen and nectar from flowers, plants and trees.
Migratory beekeepers like the Budkes move their bees from place to place as the weather changes. North Dakota, the base of the Budkes’ operation, produces the most honey of any state in the country, but it gets cold and snowy in the winter, threatening the lives of the bees.
So in the fall the Budkes move their hives from North Dakota to Texas, and in the winter they move the hives from Texas to California, where the bees pollinate the state’s almond groves. About 90 percent of the commercial beehives in the United States arrive in California between October and late February for what is known as the Super Bowl of beekeeping.
California’s almond groves offer the best business for beekeepers, paying as much as $220 per hive to help pollinate their crops. The Budkes operate about 3,000 hives.
The Budkes agreed to let Graham Dickie, a Times photographer, and I spend a few days following them through the fields in and around Adams, N.D., and later in Mount Pleasant, Texas, as they managed their hives.
They made sure Graham and I were properly covered. We put on white beekeeping jumpsuits that included a mesh face mask and gloves, and wrapped duct tape around the bottoms of our pant legs, and over our shoes, to close up any gaps.
As the sun warmed the air in North Dakota, the Budkes coaxed the bees from their hives by pumping smoke into the wooden crates that housed the colonies. And soon, swarms surrounded us.
Beekeeping suits are white for good reason: Bees don’t like dark colors. If you’re wearing anything black, bees are more likely to sting you. I didn’t know that: I was wearing a black baseball cap and a black long-sleeve shirt underneath my suit, and I was holding a black iPhone, which I use to record interviews. Several bees plunged their stingers in my gloves; others attacked my face mask, which shielded my ball cap.
More disturbing than the bees was the smell of their droppings and old beeswax. The odor lodged in my nostrils, and seemed to saturate my clothes.
But the bees themselves created beauty. The buzz from the rapid flapping of their wings produced sounds in the frequencies of the snare drum, violin, saxophone or flute, a pitch in the range of 200 to 400 hertz.
The sounds of buzzing bees is believed by some to have healing properties. It was pretty amazing.
And I never got stung.
Ivan Penn is a reporter based in Los Angeles and covers the energy industry. His work has included reporting on clean energy, failures in the electric grid and the economics of utility services.
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