“We’re looking to see if there’s another bee we can use for pollination, and this shows promise,” Wardell said.

Concern over declining honey bee populations in the United States has sparked interest in Blue Orchard Bees (BOB) as another source of pollination in a host of crops, including almonds.

Paramount’s almond operations require 92,000 honey bee colonies at the industry-standard rate of two colonies per acre. For California that demand soars to over 1.7 million bee colonies and each year that number rises as more almonds are planted and more trees come into production.

According to Wardell, Paramount’s interest in using BOB to pollinate crops is not aimed at replacing honey bee colonies used to pollinate almonds; that is not possible. Rather, BOB’s could be used in tandem with honey bee colonies to test if pollination rates can improve overall yield per acre by adding about 400 female Osmia lignaria per acre to two honey bee colonies.

Wardell has two questions related to this: Can two honey bee colonies be supplemented with 400 BOB for a greater pollination rate and nut yield; and, is this economically feasible?

Still, Wardell thinks it could be possible to pollinate almonds with fewer than the industry-standard. He believes that a single honey bee colony plus 400 BOB could do the trick.

Early indications suggest Paramount Farms is optimistic about Wardell’s idea. Within the past year the company dedicated 20 acres of land to study and rear BOB with the goal of putting them to commercial use in their San Joaquin Valley almond orchards.

“This is not just a research project,” Wardell says. “We’re looking at the economics of this.”