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The Honey Index
Crop pollination profile 2025 season - benchmark fees
Fee#1

Almond

Region 6 and 7 - 2025 season - #1 of 29 by fee

Benchmark pollination fee$209/ colony

Almond has a public USDA/NASS benchmark in Region 6 and 7; one pollination contract is 1.4x a national honey-season value per colony.

Fee / colony$209+186%
Fee / acre$310+260%
Stocking1.57 hives/achives per acre
Implied demand2,203,128colonies at peak

Source: USDA/NASS Cost of Pollination - public aggregate benchmark.

hivelinks.app/data/crops/almond

Among the 29 pollination crops USDA tracks in this benchmark bundle, Almond ranks #1 by the fee a beekeeper earns per colony. This page keeps its pollination economics, peak bloom demand, growing states, and colony-health context tied to public USDA/NASS aggregate rows.

01

Pollination economics

Almond carries a benchmark pollination fee of $209 per colony, ranking #1 of 29 tracked crops and +43% against a full honey-season baseline of $146.

Pollination fee vs. every tracked crop

Almond is highlighted against the benchmark list, with a dashed honey-season baseline marked in the plot.

direct
Fee / colony$209+186% vs crop average
Fee / acre$310+260% vs crop average
Hives / acre1.57+1% vs crop average
02

Demand and the colony gap

Pollinating almond at scale pulls in 2,203,128 colonies at peak bloom. The gap is bridged by the local producer-state colony base and migratory beekeepers who follow bloom windows.

Almond pulls in 2,203,128 colonies

Public crop-demand acres times benchmark stocking rate estimates peak demand against colonies kept in the producer states.

derived
Implied colony demand2,203,128
Kept in producer states315,000
7.0x local colonies

Peak bloom demand is larger than local producer-state colonies, so the gap is typically met by migratory beekeepers following the bloom.

Pollinated acres1,400,000public crop demand
Hives / acre1.57benchmark stocking
U.S. colony share91.3%of managed colonies
03

Where it is grown

Almond pollination clusters in producer states. Open any of them for its full honey-and-colony profile, or jump to a neighboring crop.

04

Colony health at bloom

Moving colonies into almond bloom means moving them into the pest pressure reported by its growing states. This section compares those producer-state stressors with the U.S. colony-health baseline.

Pest and stressor pressure at bloom

Producer-state stressor averages are colony-weighted, then compared with the latest national Honey Bee Colonies baseline.

derived
Almond growing statesU.S. baseline
Varroa mites41.6%
Other pests15.3%
Pesticides10.5%
Other9.3%
Diseases6.3%
Unknown2.5%

How this is derived: colony-weighted average of 1 almond producer state with USDA stressor rows for the same reporting period.