Pornography

The almond trees unfold their blossoms right around Valentine's Day every year. By then, more than half the honeybees that exist in this country have been trucked in and are now poised between the orchard rows, ready to get to work. It's an exhausting affair; an unnaturally early spring for most of the bees, and a simple diet that lacks nutrition. And - as one beekeeper told Singeli - the diseases passed in this floral brothel make it a risky venture for the beekeepers. Here's Josh, trying to catch some action on film.

600,000 acres, 40 Billion Bees

Up in a copter above the almond bloom, on a cold February morning. Josh braced himself against the wind, bare hands turning blue, to capture a sense of the magnitude of this crop. The rows extend as far as the eye can see....

Deadouts

In December, we called David Hackenberg, one of the beekeepers we were working with. Just that morning, he'd discovered most of his hives empty - the bees were gone, and even all the way across the country, on a bad cell connection, the shock and devastation were obvious in Dave's voice. In the midst of filming, we were suddenly immersed in a major news story. When we met up with Jeff Anderson again in California in January, he badly wanted to find us a few active, brimming hives to film...it wasn't easy. The losses had been extraordinary, and he was struggling to stay positive. Almond contracts loomed, and every day Jeff was finding more deadouts. Here we are filming one of the few strong hives with sound woman Julie Caine.