How Much Money Does It Cost to Grow Almonds?

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If you take bees into an almond orchard, you might rent them for a 10-day service while the crop is—while the trees are blooming. For $150, $175, maybe $200 per colony, you might put two colonies per acre. So $300, $350 an acre is how much the almond grower would pay the beekeeper. A little perspective on that is that's going to work out to be not huge in the spreadsheet of an almond grower, maybe a 5% or 7%.

Wally Thurman of North Carolina State University and PERC talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the world of bees, beekeepers, and the market for pollination. Thurman describes how farmers hire beekeepers to pollinate their crops and how that market keeps improving crop yields and producing honey. Thurman then discusses how beekeepers have responded to Colony Collapse Disorder--a not fully understood phenomenon where colonies disband, dramatically reducing the number of bees. The discussion closes with the history of bee pollination as an example of a reciprocal externality and how Coase's insight helps understand how the pollination market works.