Every major input on a modern almond orchard is measured. Water, fertiliser, chemicals and labour are counted, costed and optimised each season. The exception is the input the entire crop depends on. Bee pollination has been flagged for years as one of the almond industry’s biggest risks in national investment planning, precisely because no one has been able to measure it at commercial scale.

The experiment

During the 2026 almond pollination season, BeeSTAR and the Almond Board of Australia (ABA) ran a large field experiment on commercial beehives at Loxton, in South Australia’s Riverland. A parallel study ran at the same time inside a large working almond orchard at Robinvale in Victoria, giving the experiment a real world comparison across two states, two growing regions and two sets of operating conditions, and strengthening confidence in the results.

Under a research agreement with the ABA, BeeSTAR deployed its team and technology against three practical questions. What are the bees actually doing in the orchard during bloom? Which information do growers need most, in what form and when? And what would a fair, transparent commercial relationship between beekeepers and growers look like if both sides could see the same verified data?

The image depicts a Beestar pollination measurement station with various bee hives arranged under a cloudy sky, with a sign indicating it is part of an Almond Centre of Excellence.AI-generated content may be incorrect.

Why it matters

If pollination can be quantified, it stops being a leap of faith and becomes a managed input like everything else on the farm. Beekeepers gain the ability to prove the value their hives deliver. Growers gain the ability to plan, verify and justify their most important seasonal spend. Together, that is the technical foundation of a sustainable bee dependent economy, one in which both sides benefit because both sides can see.

Early findings from the experiment will be presented at the Australian Almond Conference, 13 to 15 October 2026.

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References

Australian Almond Conference 2026, 13 to 15 October. https://almondboard.org.au/register-now-for-the-2026-australian-almond-conference/

Hort Innovation, Almond Fund and Strategic Investment Plan. https://www.horticulture.com.au/growers/almond-fund/