Pollination of the nation
Small as they may be, honeybees play a huge role in U.S. agriculture by pollinating plants that produce about a quarter of the food consumed by Americans, from apples and almonds to blueberries and beans.
Commercial beekeepers like Robert Harvey (pictured above) transport colonies of bees across the United States so they can carry out this vital work.
A beekeeper, or apiarist, moves beehives onto a truck to be transferred to another crop after they finished pollinating a blueberry field near Jonesboro.
Commercial beekeepers like Robert Harvey (pictured above) move hundreds of crates with honeybee colonies from one farm to another to pollinate crops.
Harvey transports the insects.
He uses a fork lift to transfer the bees.
A honeybee, which beekeepers said was an Italian mixed with an Africanized breed, flies near the headlamp of a truck.
Italian honeybees buzz around Robert Harvey.
Keepers use a bee smoker to calm colonies before transferring them to another crop.
The insects buzz through the air above a beekeeper.
A beekeeper uses a forklift to stack beehives on a truck.
Beekeepers secure a cover over the hives.
They stand on the truck as the insects fly around them.
David Hackenberg, 65, prepares the hives to be transferred to another crop.
