Pocket Knife Responsible

Almond bloom comes nearly all at once in California — a flush of delicate pale blooms that unfold around Valentine’s Day.

And beekeeper Bret Adee is hustling to get his hives ready, working through them on a Central Valley ranch before placing them in orchards.

He deftly tap-taps open a hive. “We’re gonna open this up, and you’re going to see a whole lot of bees here,” Adee says.

Under the lid, the exposed sleepy occupants hum away. He uses a handheld smoker to keep them calm and huddled around their queen.

This third-generation beekeeper works night and day with a crew of more than 35. Adee has been busy staging more than 100 semi truckloads of his honey bee hives in almond orchards over a 200 mile swath of the Central Valley.

When temperatures rise and the blooms open, his bees wake up and go to work. It’s his hives’ first yearly stop on a 6,500-mile tour across the nation.

But this almond bloom, Adee’s scrambling more than usual.

Massive Loss Of Thousands Of Hives Afflicts Orchard Growers And Beekeepers

“In 2007 I was approached to design the pop-ups seen in the Disney movie, Enchanted. After receiving a storyboard, the movie’s visual standards, and reference materials from the studios of director Kevin Lima, I designed the white dummies for the three components of the opening sequence: the castle, the queen’s window, and the introduction of Prince Edward.

“Working with art director Lisa Keene and director Kevin Lima, the dummies were filmed and painted by Lisa before being sent to WETA (the CGI firm responsible for the special effects in the Lord of the Rings movies). WETA then animated the dummies, duplicating the motions and physics of the physical paper dummies.”

‘The man that showers is an enemy’