The situation in California with the bees would to seem to be...

The situation in California with the bees would to seem to be unsustainable, in my opinion.

In the lead up to the massive almond bloom event in California, typically the majority of the bee hives across the United States are shunted into trucks which are driven interstate to California, an experience which can prove to be traumatic for the bees, as in the example mentioned above.

The months in which pollination takes place in California- February and March- also happen to be two of the wettest months in the year in that state. These are not ideal conditions for the bees, who don't cope well in such cold and wet conditions.

As such, the vast numbers of relocated bees suddenly find that they have been transported to an unfamiliar and often hostile environment. When you consider this point, it is not really surprising that there has been such a problem with Colony Collapse Disorder in the US.

This is one advantage Australian almond growers have over the Californians: in the almond growing areas of this country, the weather conditions tend to be much more favourable for bees during the bloom period, late July to early September. As a result, you tend to see less weather related pollination problems in Australia in comparison to California. (On the other hand, the weather during harvest time tends to be much more problematic in Australia compared to the almond growing areas of California.)

In recent years, Californian almond growers have been trying to reduce their dependence on bees by increasingly planting self-pollinating almond varieties such as the Independence. However, there is some evidence to suggest that almonds produced by the Independence varieties don't command quite the same price as those produced by the Nonpareil type tree, so it would seem there is no easy solution to the bee problem in the US.