Dispatch From The Field: Julia Mitric

Food and sustainability reporter Julia Mitric is on her way toward Butte County where beekeepers are scrambling to move their hives to higher ground. The challenge facing bees and their keepers is that now is the time for the bees to go to work.

Follow Mitric throughout the day as she makes her way toward the Feather River and learns the fate of the bees.

Update 1:00 p.m.: The first beekeeper couldn't, or wouldn't, talk because he's a smaller, one-man operation and is scrambling to get bees in place in the Delta. He's got 2,000 bees.

So, he sent me to a bigger player, Strachan Apiaries, to find out how they've handled the triple whammy of rain, dam evacuation and eager growers anxious to get bee hives in place for almond pollination time.

Update 11:00 a.m.: Heading north out of Sacramento toward Yuba City and Oroville, I notice how the land widens and stretches out as soon as I leave the city behind. There are lots of fields, wet fields. Some have standing water in them and other have puddles or pools.

Because of the recent precipitation and wet conditions, beekeepers and bee brokers have been scrambling in parts of Yuba and Sutter Counties. Their job is to get hundreds and thousands of bees into place for the February pollination of the almond orchards.

The concern is whether people will be able to get bees into the orchard where they need to go and get them out and moving them where the blossom is happening. 

Beekeepers are concerned about the value of their investment in these bee boxes that can be worth as much as $300 a box, and they can get up to $200 a box for placing them in a field or orchard for pollination. 

You can follow this blog for more updates throughout the day.