(Economics)---About 60% of all the food consumed in America has a bee connection. Without bees, the country would lose about $20 billion in crops – almonds, citrus fruits, pears, cucumbers and apples – that are not self pollinating. However, bee numbers are declining fast – by about 50% in six months. The varroa mite, a bee parasite first found in the country of Indonesia a century ago and spread to America in 1987. It sucks the blood of bees and now pesticides can’t even kill them. The steady loss of bees has especially hurt the Californian almond industry, which accounts for 88% of the world’s almond crop. Farmers think that yields may fall by as much as 16%. As a result almond prices are soaring to over $3 per pound, an unprecedented level. That may be good news for almond growers but it is causing confectionery (people who bake sweets) producers to switch to hazelnuts. The Central Valley of California has the perfect climate for almond trees, but they need a lot of help. So, every year, the valley hosts the largest controlled pollination in the world. There are about 6,500 almond farms in the Central Valley and they produce 50 to 80 percent of the world’s almonds. There aren’t nearly enough local bees, wild or domesticated, to pollinate all those flowers, so when the almond trees start to bloom, beekeepers from all over the country descend on the Central Valley. “You can see the trucks coming from out of state. They come from as far as Florida, because it’s their bread and butter,” says beekeeper Rosemary Grissom. In all, more than 1,500 beekeepers make the trip, and they bring billions of bees with them. When the almonds finish blooming, some of these beekeepers will take their hives on to pollinate other crops — cherries in Washington State, squash in Texas, cranberries in Wisconsin. Grissom says a lot of people assume that beekeepers make a living from honey, but renting out their bees to farmers is how most of them pay the bills. In February, when a lot of winter rain sent the California almond crop into bloom, almond farmer Joe Del Bosque rented about 1,500 hives from Grissom for $180 dollars apiece. Recently, beekeepers like Grissom have been struggling to cope with the widely reported, but still mysterious, phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder, which has devastated bee populations throughout the country. Scientists say disease and parasites have weakened hives, and recent studies have linked bee decline to the use of pesticides called neonicotinoids. For her part, Grissom says she just has to plan for the worst and create extra hives. “We just make more bees,” she says. “Last year, instead of making 500 new ones we made 800, because you don’t know how many you’re going to lose in the winter. And then sometimes that doesn’t even cover it.” So far this year Grissom’s bees are doing pretty well. After the almond bloom ends, she’ll take them over to pollinate Del Bosque’s melons. As for Del Bosque, he’s going to keep on growing almonds. Prices are low right now, but they’re still a lucrative crop that he’s invested a lot of money into. But the future is less certain. Almonds need a lot of water and a lot of bees, and right now both are in short supply. Supply and Demand Questions: How is the declining bee population affecting the price of almonds? What are almond farmers in Central Valley doing to pollinate their 6,500 almond farms, and how have declining bee populations affected to price and demand of bees for bee keepers? How and why has the declining bee populations affected the demand and price of hazelnuts?