Riverside County, California – A Riverside County beekeeper says last week’s Verona Fire, which erupted near Hemet and scorched hundreds of acres, cost him 80 hives and millions of bees.
Brandon Teller, of BeeDoctor Bee Removal, warns the loss could deliver a critical blow to the region’s farmers and shoppers.
“As the beekeeper, that’s devastating to me,” Teller said. He noted that only a small number of bees survived at the apiary.
Teller regularly travels across Southern California, rescuing unwanted European honeybees and bringing them back to his property to rehabilitate. Once the bees recover and are strong enough to work, he rents them out to alfalfa and almond farmers to pollinate their crops.
“We say, ‘Hey, we’ve got plenty of hives right here. They’re ready to go, they’ve got fresh queens and they’re hungry,'” Teller said. “Farmers love it.”
He believes that losing three to four million bees will send ripple effects across Southern California.
“Keeping bees and maintaining bees at this scale is what allows the farmer to produce food at a lower cost,” Teller said.
While he acknowledges a long road of rebuilding ahead, he says the most important lesson from this loss points directly to fire prevention and the conservation of California’s natural landscape.
“The saying goes: This land is my land, this land is your land. It’s all of our land and we have to conserve it, we have to preserve it, we have to maintain it, and we have to do it responsibly,” Teller said.
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