Francisco Rey, left, with Ron Miksha. This photo, from 2012, was taken at one of my apiaries in Alberta, Canada, while Francisco was visiting here.
Today’s podcast episode – Chile for Avocado Pollination, Queen Production, and Adventure – talks about the country of Chile, Francisco’s 43 years of commercial beekeeping, queen breeding, Francisco’s friendship with researcher John Kefuss, Francisco’s family-run bee farm, avocado pollination, avocado honey, exporting queens, and we talk about why you should visit Francisco in South America.
Some interesting points in this Chilean episode:
- It takes a lot of bees to pollinate avocados – at least 5 colonies per acre
- There are 1.2 million colonies of bees in Chile (vs 2.5 million in the USA)
- Encourage your crew to be very, very artistic when they paint mating nucs
- Bees in Chile pollinate kiwi, cherries, apples, almonds, avocados, and garden seeds
- Without pollination, a lot of Chilean beekeepers would have to quit – they need the money
- Avocado pollen is too heavy to blow in the breeze, so bees have to carry it
- Chile is one of the world’s biggest producers of cherries
- Apples and cherries need about 500 hours of cold weather every year
- Chile exports queens to Canada, France, Lebanon, Jordan, Spain, Italy…..
This episode was recorded in August 2025.
There are already over 50 episodes of About Bees, Culture, and Curiosity. And you can listen to all of them completely free. I’m amazed that I have so many already. Sort of like when you are extracting honey. At first, just a few drops piddle out of the extractor, then a few hours later, you have some containers filled. Soon, a big truck arrives to haul off a semi load of 65 big steel drums of honey. It’s been like this with the podcast.
By now, almost everyone knows how to access a podcast. Mine – About Bees, Culture, and Curiosity – can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, iHeart Radio, Player FM, Deezer, and a dozen other places – including this special website for my podcast. Go to your favourite app on your phone or computer and enjoy.
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