Speaker 1: From the Oregon State University Extension Service, this is Pollination, a podcast that tells the stories of researchers, land managers, and concerned citizens making bold strides to improve the health of pollinators. I'm your host, Dr. Adoni Melopoulos, assistant professor in pollinator health in the department of horticulture. Every time at this time of year, I try to have a show on the largest crop pollination event anywhere on the planet.

That is, as you probably guessed, the pollination of California almonds. And this year, I'm really excited for our guests. It's Dr. Brittany Goodrich. She's an assistant cooperative extension specialist in the Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics at the University of California Davis. Dr. Goodrich has been doing some fascinating studies looking at the economics of almond pollination and very specifically, the way in which almond pollination contracts are written, where sometimes they specify the strength of the colonies.

In this episode, she's going to talk broadly about those contracts, how they're literally inked half a year before the colonies show up, and some of the challenges associated with putting a price on what those colonies are delivering to pollination. The other big thing that's going on this time of year, the first week of March, is Lynn County Master Gardeners Beevent. It's the seventh annual beevent this Saturday, March 6th.

It is the largest pollinator event that happens here in the Pacific Northwest, it's an annual event. It's only $20. It's going to be online, so anybody from around the country can join in. Every person who's going to be presenting has been a guest on pollination. There's Jim Kane, who's going to be talking about how to help bees in your yard. Katherine LaCroix, who talked, remembers about invasive mason bees and their impacts on native bee communities.

August Jackson is going to be talking about the bees of the Willamette Valley, and we're going to have Lincoln Best from the Oregon Bee Alice talking about some of the extremely cool bees our volunteers have found over the last couple of years. Okay, $20, that's all it is. It's virtual. Anybody from around the country can join in. This Saturday, March 6th, type in Beevent 2021, and you will find it, or go to the show notes and you will find a link to the registration page there. So without further ado, let's go down to California now and let's talk with Dr. Brittany Goodrich about almond pollination markets this week on Pollination. Welcome to Pollination. I'm so excited to have you here.

Speaker 2: Thank you for having me. It's fun to be here.

Speaker 1: And it's really perfect because we are speaking right in the midst of almond pollination. It's going on right now. But when I was reviewing some of the work that you've done, I understood these arrangements that are currently engaged have taken place over a long period and there are things like the date that the colonies are going to arrive, the number of colonies, this has all been determined in advance. Can you tell us a little bit about those arrangements that exist?

Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. So yeah, these agreements, sort of vary by beekeeper and grower or whether the beekeeper contracts through a pollination broker or a grower. But I mean, some of these contracts were established way back in June of last year. So they established them over the summer so that the beekeeper knows, okay, I need to bring this many colonies at this strength in order to get this pollination fee.

And so yeah, they're established well in advance. And as probably many of your listeners know, it's really hard for beekeepers to sort of keep colonies alive in general. And then also in February when almond bloom occurs, it's really hard to get those colonies up to a large population. And that's what the almond growers really want because it's not raining here today.

It's actually a really beautiful day here. But a lot of times during almond bloom, rain happens. And so what you need is these really large colonies that can go out and fly and pollinate all the blooms in the short amount of time that they're able to fly. And so that's kind of why the growers really want these really strong colonies to insure against in case of bad weather.

Speaker 1: Well, and I can just imagine with such a long, a lot can go on in six months after you sort of come to an agreement. And the growers are concerned as you point out that they get these really strong colonies, but I imagine the beekeepers have all sorts of things that can happen, especially in the winter. They come out and it's just been a bad veroi year and suddenly they're really scrambling to make the grade for their colonies. So just to set this up, how do growers assess the strength of the colonies when they arrive? So the bees have come in, they've been plopped down, and they agree to so many colonies, how do they even figure out what the strength of these colonies is when they come?

Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's a really good question. And again, it's going to depend on the pair of growers and beekeepers. So you can, as an almond grower, you can actually pay for what they call a colony strength inspection. So there are a number of third-party operations that are basically, usually, they're like retired beekeepers or something along those lines, and they'll actually come out and assess your colonies. So they inspect, you know, a sample of the colonies, they're not going to inspect every single one, but they're going to inspect maybe like 10% of the colonies.

They're going to open them up, they're going to look inside and see how many of the frames are covered in at least 75% of bees and brood. And they count those up and sort of average them over the colonies that they sample. And so what you get then is this average frame count. And so that's reported back to the grower and that's the average frame count is the most common colony strength requirement, which I found in my survey. And so usually these growers are contracting for like an eight-frame average.

So you need on average eight active frames across all of those colonies in order to meet that colony strength requirement. So you can have these contracts that require the inspection to take place so that the grower knows what they're actually paying for. But a lot of times what we have is in this industry, especially there is a lot of like growers and beekeepers that have worked together for maybe 30 years. So when you have that sort of long-standing relationship with your beekeeper, your grower, a lot of times those relationships, they're not actually having that formal inspection done. So the grower is just like, I know you've been providing you with bees for 30 years.

I've always had good almond yields, like you've always been good, and provided the bees with the strength that I wanted. And so then those those types of relationships that the inspection doesn't take place. But there is this underlying, you know, understanding that the strength is there and it's really developed through those relationships. So you have, you know, just a lot of different ways that these colony strength requirements can be verified. And I wanted to go back to something that you said before, because yeah, a lot can happen if I'm a beekeeper, and high contract in June for, you know, a really high colony strength requirement.

So maybe like 10 frames or something like that. And I go to North Dakota, or I'm in North Dakota for the summer, and there's a drought. Bee colonies, however, many bee colonies are not getting that really good forage, they're not producing honey. So by the time I'm ready to go back to, you know, California for almond pollination, I may not have that 10-frame average. And so that can be really detrimental to some of them to any beekeeper that that happens to.

And it's purely just sort of random, like you said, you could have high varroa mite counts or something like that. So then the beekeeper ends up with really low-strength colonies, and they more than likely have high winter losses. So then they have fewer colonies to rent out. So these colony strength requirements are good in terms of ensuring growers are getting what they want and sort of ensuring that the really high-strength colonies are getting the premium that they deserve. But they really introduce a lot of risk to beekeepers, which is sort of, yeah, what interested me about this topic.

Speaker 1: Well, and I suppose, as you point out, with a lot of the majority of the growers that you surveyed, there's a kind of like, well, it'll come out in the wash, like somehow, you know, some years they'll come in strong, some years come we have a longstanding relationship.

But it does, you know, then nevertheless raise the question. It's like, I remember reading your work, and you know, most growers are, you know, the rule of thumb of two colonies per acre, that that's what they, you know, whatever's in those two colonies per acre, just bring in two colonies an acre, and we'll call it good. But that, you know, it is possible that you know, you might not, you know if you might have needed four colonies per acre if they were weak, and you might have only needed one really, like, really strong colony per acre, that there may be some value in there for the growers and the beekeepers is not being, you know, that's not being kind of fully realized.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, definitely. And that's something. It's a very, it's a very complicated thing. Not only because there's just not a whole lot of research that's been done on, like, okay, if I have two eight-frame colonies per acre of almonds, are my almond yields better or worse than if I have two four-frame colonies, so two really small colonies. And, and it's, it's hard to assess that primarily because of, first of all, the scale of almonds. So, I mean, there's over a million bearing acres of almonds in California, and it's all concentrated in the Central Valley. And so you have all of these almond orchards next to other almond orchards. And so that means you have just bee colonies everywhere. So then you can't really assess, all right, well, maybe this orchard had two eight-frame colonies, but maybe right next door, the grower there had two 12-frame colonies. And so then you really have no way to judge, you know, the bees are fine all over and they don't stop where the orchard stops. So it's really hard to assess some of these things, for sure.

Speaker 1: In the same way that a grower with some inputs would know because it's not like your fertilizer goes into the next field. And so you have very clear, you have a real clear perception of what that value is where may have some weaker ones, but the next door just happened to be stronger. And you had that high yield that the handshake agreement is based on. But the beekeeper may not have delivered that value.

Speaker 2: Right, right, exactly. And so it's, yeah, it's complicated from that respect. And then it's also complicated from an administrative standpoint. One of the things that I've looked into is crop insurance. And actually, I'm still trying to figure out what exactly crop insurance requires.

I've literally talked to people at USDA, RMA, and crop insurance agents and everything. But it's sort of, crop insurance, their requirements say that you're supposed to have two six-frame average colonies per acre for almonds in order to if you have, let me take a step back here. Most almond acres are insured with this USDA, RMA crop insurance, so federal crop insurance. So it's, I think it's like 83% of almond acres are insured. So in order to have that insurance, you have to make sure that you're following what they call good management practices or good farming practices. Otherwise, you don't qualify for the crop insurance. So if you have a claim, then you basically they're like, all right, well, you didn't put any bee colonies out.

So obviously, your almond yields, we're not good. So we're not going to pay because you didn't pay for bee colonies. So they require these two colonies at a six-frame average, sort of, but you can get around it by having like an expert, what they consider an agricultural expert. So like an extension agent or something say, you know, this, this was, this was enough colonies that should have gotten the adequate almond yield. And so, yeah, there's just like all of these kind of like administrative things. And then they just intertwine with the fact that we don't actually know how many colonies we should have. You know, and so it's, it's a very complicated question. And I guess, because of that growers are just like, well, I'm just going to do two hives per acre, no matter what. And then I satisfy everything. And it's okay.

Speaker 1: Well, I was really struck that some growers are actually, you know, I think he's cited in the paper, it costs about $1, $1.50 a colony to get it inspected. And that, you know, there's a, there's a large number of growers that, you know, as you point out, never inspect the colonies. And so that that must be another level of uncertainty with the fertilizer, you know, how many pounds you put down, but you're not entirely sure you got two colonies per acre, but you're not, you may have a very fuzzy idea of like what actually got delivered.

Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. And I think I suspect I don't know this for sure. But I suspect a lot of the growers that aren't, well, there's sort of two things that are going on when the growers aren't inspecting.

So I said they have these sorts of longer-term relationships. And what I found with my survey data is when they aren't inspecting, they're not, you know, they're not paying attention to colony strength. They're not inspecting.

They're actually paying lower fees. So you don't have to pay the beekeeper as much if you don't go out there and inspect. And so part of that is also because, I mean, anytime you open a bee colony, you run the risk of, you know, rolling that queen off or killing her, whatever. And so then there's a risk to the beekeeper of just simply having these inspections performed. And so then it's like, all right, well, if I'm a grower and I've worked with the same beekeeper for 30 years, do I really want to put his or her colonies at risk just to make sure when, you know, they've been providing me with what I think is adequate colonies for 30 years now, or maybe they inspected for the first few years. And then we're like, all right, this guy or gal is legit. And so we don't have to keep inspecting and taking that risk. Okay.

Speaker 1: And I recall you found some interesting findings in terms of, you know, the actual, you know, the actual frame counts in both situations and maybe the, well, you bring up the situation of potential value, you know, you're getting bees will maybe a little bit less expensive. But let's let's take a quick break. I want to get into I want to give a lot of people a chance to absorb all that. Let's have a quick break. And let's come back to your research findings.

I found them fascinating. Okay, we're back. That was why I always loved the breaks. They're always a fascinating conversation for me.

And I guess coming back, I just want to set. So you're really interested in you've been having a number of studies on this almond pollination market, which is the largest in the world. And, you know, the way that you set it up is like, there are some issues here, the beekeepers have that have a long period of time to the contract. And I guess the growers expect that they're going to put all their resources in and get the colony strong to get that fee. And then, and then on the almond side of things, there's, you know, there's a lot of colonies coming in and, you know, maybe some confusion over strength. Tell us a little bit more like, why did this whole project interest you? Like, what are some of the peculiarities about this almond pollination market that are so fascinating to an economist?

Speaker 2: Yeah, so the so what really interested me was, I mean, I grew up in Iowa. So I was surrounded by corn and soybean farmers growing up. And so I've always been fascinated by how, you know, growers deal with risk in their operations. So that's really kind of how I got interested in this together, just because it is a risk for both beekeepers and almond growers. And so when I started studying the almond pollination market, I, you know, had just looked at like the previous literature from economics that had looked at some of these pollination markets. And one of the things that I got a lot of my information from beekeepers and almond growers, because, you know, there's not yet a book, I don't think, on just like almond pollination. So the best way to get the information is to go and talk directly to the source. So I was talking to these beekeepers and growers about the things that they're concerned about.

And then going back and looking at the academic literature on this topic. And it was like, there's this big, there's this big empty area that's missing, which is colony strength because it was something that when you go up to a beekeeper and you ask them, you know, what pollination fee are you getting for almonds this year, they're going to tell you $200 for an eight frame average. And so it's not, you can't just they're not going to tell you $200, they're going to tell you what colony strength they're contracting for.

And so this was something that was really missing from the economic literature. And then I started, you know, looking into winter mortality rates and colony strength and realizing that there is this sort of there's a correlation between the winter mortality rates and colony strength that's actually delivered during almond bloom. And so when you have winter mortality rates that are high, you typically have lower colony strength that's delivered for almonds specifically.

And so I started really putting two and two together and thinking about this. And just realized that there was this quality component to pollination services that wasn't being factored in in the previous economic literature. So losing, you know, a 25% mortality rate over the winter doesn't just mean a beekeeper loses 25% of their colonies, it means they lose 25% of their colonies, they have lower strength to supply to almonds, which means they're most likely going to be well, not all the time, but they'll probably receive a lower pollination fee for those colonies that remain. So there's really this compounding effect that I thought it was really important to focus on because we want to improve bee health. And I think one of the ways to to go about doing that, and I guess I'm a little biased because I'm an economist, but I really think a lot about the profitability of the beekeeping operation, because if they don't have, you know, extra money after almonds, they don't have the funds to pay for borrower treatments or pay for extra food when they need it, that sort of thing. So it really has sort of this compounding effect on profitability and colony health that was really missing when you remove that quality standpoint from the pollination services and the fees. So that was that was sort of what really you know brought me in and really made me interested in this topic.

Speaker 1: I do agree. I think there oftentimes there have been economic studies that have looked at colonies moving and some of the expenses but not the kind of the kind of pattern. You know, the colony is coming into winter and then you have to make these losses up. And I guess the thing is in almonds you don't have any opportunity to make losses up. So you're unlike many any you know on the far extreme you know the later summer crops that are pollinated avocado or something you don't have any capacity to make up losses. You really are kind of stuck. There are no queens and no packages. You got what you got.

Speaker 2: Yeah, your queen and package producers are all in almonds. Making your bees for you for after. Yeah, and I mean and something else that's really important about this industry as well is like you said it's virtually the biggest pollination event in the world. And so where I think estimates for this year are 2.5 million colonies are probably here in California right now pollinating almonds. And to give you some context it is over I forget the exact number but it's over 80% of the colonies in the US and probably right now. And so that's it is a much bigger percent of the commercial colonies because I mean USDA when they do their colony counts they're counting anyone with five or more colonies. So if you have 10 colonies in New York you're not going to bring those 10 colonies to California to pollinate almonds because it just doesn't make sense. So it's really probably much higher like closer to 90% or upwards of 90% of commercial colonies are already participating in almonds. And so that like you said that means there's no other colonies left. It's you can't you can't get a package of bees and bring them into almonds.

There's just none available. So really the weather and some of these other you know sort of external factors, bromides those sorts of things they can really have a big impact on this market.

Speaker 1: Okay so let's come to sort of the crux of the question in you know the paper that we're discussing. So there are ways you were just maybe you can discuss this a little bit that you know a grower can penalize a beekeeper for coming into the week.

They potentially could provide a bonus for their strength. Tell us about this specific issue of colony strength and where you know real you know making sure beekeepers get an incentive for bringing in stronger colonies and growers you know getting what they pay for. Tell us what you found when you kind of looked at this problem a little bit more closely.

Speaker 2: Yeah so yeah so one of the biggest things that I found in this paper that that you're talking about I basically just grouped similar contracts of the 75 growers that I had surveyed at the almond conference in 2015. And so then I what I found was there were these groups and I forget what I called I think I called them something but basically there's a group of growers who offer these contracts that are they're you know they have a colony strength requirement of like eight frames ten frames something like that and they're going to inspect so they're really strict contracts and that they're going to inspect every year. And so in these types of contracts, you have a higher pollination fee because you have that inspection occurring. And then if the inspection occurs and you the the beekeeper don't meet that colony strength requirement they can be penalized by that grower just based on the contract. So now this can be in terms of like some of these contracts are really like in-depth and so they basically pay the beekeeper per frame so they can they take whatever the average frame count of the inspection was and said okay you provided 12 frames on average so we're going to pay you $225 per colony or another beekeeper for the same grower could provide colonies that were only a seven frame average and they only get you know $175 per colony. So you do have these situations where beekeepers are paid based on the colony strength that they actually provide. You can also have situations where you know they just have this average colony strength of eight frames and if the beekeeper doesn't meet it then they're just penalized either in terms of some monetary penalty because they didn't meet the requirement. And what I found through this survey was more often than not I think I called them like I don't I don't remember traditional or regular written and verbal contracts the grower is basically just going to say hey my colony strength requirement was not met so can you bring some more colonies in to basically supplement the colonies that you brought.

Speaker 1: So they kind of go through they do their survey two percent of them were below grade I need you to make up those two percent somehow. Okay, gotcha.

Speaker 2: Yeah so then they just the beekeeper just brings in additional colonies if they have them or they have to go you know basically rent them from another beekeeper because they couldn't meet their their colony strength requirement. So there may not be a penalty from the grower but they may have to you know spend some extra money to get other colonies if they don't have any extra just lying around. So yeah it's very complicated and it depends like I said on the specific beekeeper and grower and how their relationship works I basically was just talking about beekeepers and growers I hadn't even really talked much about pollination brokers but they're typically going to be more looking into whether or not the colony strength requirements are met or not. So that's kind of the service that they're providing to the growers so they may not pay someone to conduct the colony strength inspection but they might have themselves or other people that they pay to go out there and make sure that the colonies are of adequate strength because the grower is actually paying you to know a little premium to the broker to ensure that the colonies are of the right strength and and so then that kind of gives the grower a peace of mind.

Speaker 1: And then I guess we have the other we have that probably the largest majority of growers who don't aren't looking at the colonies at all or just you know like you say they have they're paying a lower rate they're playing a lower fee but they're getting you to know they're getting their bees in and sort of it's just like two colonies per acre

Speaker 2: right okay yeah exactly and depending on the relationship with their beekeeper their beekeeper may say hey my colonies are not great right now so I'm going to bring in some more and so that's kind of how some of these relationships work so you have even I'm still learning about these relationships as well even though I've done a ton of research but they have what's called field run colonies which are sort of like they're they're not graded as harshly and then you have the graded colonies and so you I think a lot of these more relational relationship based transactions are going to use the field run type of colonies which are going to be a little bit lower strength for the beekeeper is going to have some more flexibility and bring in colonies when he thinks that the you know the strength or number is not good enough for the grower.

Speaker 1: Do you have any sense at this point and this is going to take a little while to untangle I imagine you've got a lot of work to do but do you have any sense of whether this well the system is clearly working people are getting paid almonds are getting produced but do you have any sense of where perhaps the imbalances might exist in the system or is there some value is somebody you know somebody getting more value out of this relationship than others or from these various groups that you've looked at is there anything that that you can tell us in sort of your early findings.

Speaker 2: You know the one thing that came to mind and I'm not sure if this is exactly answering your question or not but it really goes back to the number of colonies that we're using per acre and really so up until I don't know the early 2000s almond growers were paying very small not very small still higher than other crops but they were paying maybe like I think it was like eight percent of their total annual operating cost went to pollination services to pay for the colonies coming

Speaker 1: This is kind of typical for most crops in the West.

Speaker 2: Right so yeah so then after colony collapse disorder or whatever happened basically the almond pollination fees went up substantially and now they're paying you know somewhere around 20 percent of their annual operating costs in pollination fees and so now we're getting to this point where we're using most of the colonies in the U.S. The growers are paying a lot of money to for the colonies and and so now we're having growers that are really kind of scrutinizing these expenses because especially this year almond prices right now are very low and so you have growers that just don't want to spend the you know 200 dollars per colony on on their colonies for two per acre and so I think that going forward this is probably going to be something that's like heavily researched and heavily assessed because it's something that's such an unknown like how many colonies do we actually need and and something that's going to be really scrutinized just because it's such a big expense for almond growers now and so I know that like I have a project working or that's hopefully going to look at some of these things and I know that Dr. Elena and Nino here at UC Davis also has some projects looking at just stocking densities in almonds and so I think that that's an area where yeah there's a lot of unknowns and and really it's just an area that we sort of have to figure out a little bit more and and I guess some some people think that you know the beekeepers are going to be mad if that the almond growers start using fewer than two hives per acre but to me it seems like the beekeeping industry is really under a lot of stress to provide the number of colonies that are currently required and so it almost seems like maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing if there was you know a little less demand out there so that beekeepers aren't you know contracting all of their colonies and then having 30% losses and having to find and scramble and find those colonies elsewhere.

Speaker 1: Well I guess especially if it's and I guess this is you know still I like what you said at the beginning of the interview this big gap between sort of field practices and the research and that you know it is possible that one colony one strong colony per acre is as good as four weak ones like who knows what that equation looks like.

Speaker 2: Yeah and so then it becomes a question of like yeah do we use the like is a grower going to accept four colonies for small colonies per acre and so I guess just like I guess this kind of relies on some of like cooperative extension and in sort of doing some of this research and then getting the information out there like yeah four colonies four small colonies per acre is fine or you know one large colony per acre is fine it doesn't have to be that that you know hard set two colonies per acre.

Speaker 1: Fantastic well thanks for taking us through this complicated picture I'm looking forward to catching up with you in the future to learn more about this but let's take a quick break now we have our last segment we do with all our guests I'm I don't think we've ever had an economist answer these questions before.

Oh boy. I'm really curious so let's take a quick break we'll be back in just a second. Okay, we are back we've got these three questions we ask our guests do you have a book recommendation?

Speaker 2: Yeah I do and now I'm blanking on the author but it's called The Honey Bus. The Honey Bus. Yeah, and it's yeah the author and I really wish I could remember her name it's a woman but it's it's a true story about this woman who basically has kind of a rough childhood and she moves in with her grandparents who live in like Carmel Valley California I think. Really? And so then basically her grandpa keeps bees and so she uses like learns how to keep bees and it really helps her through childhood and what I really like about it is just that all of the bee facts are like they're spot on I feel like I assess a lot of like bee facts especially like in children's books or whatever with like buying them for my friend's kids I'm like I want to make sure that they're getting the right bee facts there and then a bumblebee isn't mixed up with a honeybee and so she it's very clear that she and her grandpa were very they were very good beekeepers and so it's really interesting to read so yeah I think it's it's great, especially for people who don't know a lot about beekeeping and just want you to know a book to read in their free time.

Speaker 1: Well and I got the author here pulled up the book Meredith May. Meredith May yes. I always wonder about it I was you know you go to California and you know you get to meet all the beekeepers I understand there are these you know when the pandemic's not on it's a great chance for various people to catch up and some of those families go back to three generations so like growing up with bees is something I got came to later in life but there are whole families that have been passing it down from generation to generation it's pretty remarkable.

Speaker 2: Yeah definitely it is it's very interesting and he the the grandpa in the story who has like the story's title he has a bus where he extracts honey from it's like an old military bus that's just like super hot and gross so it's very interesting.

Speaker 1: That sounds terrible I will just tell all the listeners like I think I love beekeeping but I hate extracting honey it's like the thing I hate to do most where I used to work we had this facility and there was you had the dial nine to get out but by the end of the end of the year after extraction that nine was like so solidly stiff because the honey had moved itself into the dial just like ugh honey extraction. That's funny. In a bus. Yes.

Bird get it. Okay well, moving on I have a question do you have a go-to tool for the work that you do the work that you do seems to be very mysterious I looked through your paper in the method section and I just saw equations.

Speaker 2: Yes yes so my go-to tool is a whiteboard when I'm in the office I have a whole wall that's painted in whiteboard paint so I can just write my equations on there and erase them when I mess up which is often and yeah so basically just a computer a spreadsheet data I like to use are and just kind of use my data and or analyze my data that way but yeah economists are pretty easy we don't unfortunate, lately we don't get to do the fun stuff like going out in the field and doing all the fieldwork which maybe real scientists probably don't think that's very fun but yeah so I just spend a lot of time on the computer.

Speaker 1: Well I imagine for like the paper that we're talking about today there you have all the survey data that comes in and I guess each one of those funny little symbols represents some part of the dynamic of like like I guess in some ways you're trying to create something that can describe what happens in reality but you understand the mechanism inside it.

Speaker 2: Yeah exactly so you just want yeah more and more responses are great just so you can get a better idea of like what's actually going on out there.

Speaker 1: All right well this brings us to the pollinator do you have a favorite pollinator species and you know I'm yeah I wonder wonder what it is.

Speaker 2: I'm probably just going to have to be very boring and just go with the honey bee because I don't I'm an economist I don't know that many pollinators honestly until I started researching beekeeping like way back you know seven or eight years ago when I started my dissertation I didn't even know there were like four thousand species of bees or whatever like I just saw a bee and ran away and was scared and didn't care what kind of bee it was I just assumed they were all the same so I'm just going to go with honey bees and be boring.

Speaker 1: You know but I really have to say I'm really amazed like I'm sure all the listeners will agree there's a way in which you've understood the kind of beekeeping in a way that's very comprehensive by just looking at the flow of like contracts and people it does remind me you know I've all I've read the poem but I haven't read the whole book the Bernard Mandelville's table of the bees it's like this 1750s kind of tract on you know first piece of modern sociology and it's like and it's about humans.

Speaker 2: Yeah yeah definitely it's definitely interesting and yeah and that's what I like to I guess bring into the conversation a lot of times is like yeah we talk about bee health and we all want bees to be healthy but there's also the human component of it and like we're keeping bees and there's a reason why and they do things for us and so I guess that's something I like to bring in and also just through this research like I realize that bees are just super cool and I like you know I stuck my head in a hive for the first time and I was just like this is the coolest thing I've ever seen even though I was I'm still a little scared of getting stung but.

Speaker 1: Well fantastic Dr. Goodrich thanks so much for taking the time to give us a snapshot of this really fascinating system that's going on just south of us in California.

Speaker 2: Yeah thank you so much for having me it's been fun.

Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening to the show is produced by Quinn Sinanil who's a student here at OSU in the New Media Communications program and the show wouldn't even be possible without the support of the Oregon legislature the Foundation for Food and agricultural research in western Sarah show notes with links mentioned on each episode are available on the website which is at pollinationpodcast.oreganstate.edu. I also love hearing from you and there are several ways to connect with me the first one is you can visit the website and leave an episode-specific comment you can suggest a future guest or topic or ask a question that could be featured in a future episode but you can do the same things on Twitter Instagram or Facebook by visiting the Oregon bee project thanks so much for listening and see you next week