The Silence of the Bees

The perilous existence of a migratory beekeeper amid a great bee die-off

  • Scanning electron microscope image of a bee loaded with pollen

    Darwin Dale/Photo Researchers Inc.
  • An almond orchard in Modesto, California, where John Miller moves bee hives every winter just before the bloom

    Singeli Agnew
  • Beekeeper John Miller readies his hives for the season

    Hannah Nordhaus
  • Alternating varieties of almond trees, with different bloom times, in Modesto

    Singeli Agnew
  • Varroa mites, tiny ticklike creatures, have infested beehives around the world (scattered on page, approximately 40 times actual size)

  • John Miller’s annual beekeeping route stretches from California to North Dakota. Inset: 24 states have reported colony collapse disorder in at least some beehives

    Diane Sylvain
  • Bees from one of Miller’s hives

    Singeli Agnew
  • Bees fill the air in Gackle, North Dakota, where John Miller takes his bees each year to make honey in fields of clover and alfalfa

    Hannah Nordhaus



This annual bee migration isn't just a curiosity; it's the glue that holds much of modern agriculture together. Without the bees' pollination services, California's almond trees — the state's top export crop — would produce 40 pounds of almonds per acre; with the bees, they can generate 2,400 pounds. Honeybees provide the same service for more than 100 other crops, from lettuce to cranberries to oranges to canola, up and down the West Coast.

Miller likes to call the annual pilgrimage of the beekeepers the "native migrant tour," and he likes to call himself the tour's "padrone." He has thinning brown hair and an eternally bemused expression, and he never stands still. He is an observant but rebellious Mormon, and he doesn't look the part of the flannel-and-rubbers-clad beekeeper: His usual uniform includes surf shorts, a baseball cap, running shoes and a race T-shirt. (He has run 25 marathons.) Miller, who is 52, is not the biggest beekeeper in the United States, nor is he the most politically connected — South Dakota's Richard Adee, with his 70,000 hives, wins that distinction.



Today, some elements of a commercial beekeeper's life remain the same. John Miller's bees ply some of the same fields that hosted his great-grandfather's hives. He sells his honey on a handshake to the same processors his grandfather used and competes with the sons of the same men his father vied against. He spends 300 days a year with his bees and gets stung almost every day, as many as 50 times on a bad day. Just the same, he counts bees among his most reliable companions. "A honeybee only has a 900,000-neuron brain, so if I conduct myself within the framework of the honeybees' limited understanding, they're fine," he said. "I understand bees. I don't understand people very well."
