The Secret Life of Avocado Flowers: How Bees Create Every Avocado You've Ever Eaten

By David — Somis, California

If you've ever tasted a perfectly ripe avocado and wondered how it got there, the answer starts not in a packing facility or a shipping box — it starts with a honeybee, a flower, and a very precise sense of timing.

Every spring on our three-generation family ranch in Somis, California, thousands of tiny avocado flowers open across our 100 certified organic acres. Bees fly. Pollen travels. And the avocados you'll be eating more than a year from now quietly begin their lives as something we call "beebees" — marble-sized baby fruit no bigger than your thumbnail. Here's how it all works.

Avocado flowers have a secret: they change gender twice a day

Most people don't realize that avocado trees have one of the most unusual flowering systems in the plant kingdom. Each flower is hermaphroditic — it has both male and female parts — but it doesn't use both at the same time.

Every avocado flower opens twice over two days, switching roles each time. On its first opening, the flower functions as female, ready to receive pollen. It closes. Then the following day it reopens as male, releasing pollen into the air. This switching is called dichogamy, and it's nature's way of encouraging cross-pollination between different trees rather than self-fertilization.

But not all avocado varieties follow the same schedule — and that's where the magic happens.

Type A and Type B: a perfectly timed partnership

Avocado varieties are split into two groups based on when their flowers switch between female and male. Type A varieties (like Hass, Gem, and Lamb Hass) are female in the morning and shed pollen the following afternoon. Type B varieties (like Luna, Fuerte, Bacon and Zutano) do the opposite — female in the afternoon, shedding pollen the next morning. The result: while one type is releasing pollen, the other is open and ready to receive it. They're perfectly offset by design.

On our ranch, we grow 17+ varieties — a deliberate mix of Type A and Type B planted side by side across more than 25,000 certified organic trees. You can try most of these over the course of the year by subscribing to our Curated Variety Subscription box. Our newest planting is a perfect example: in our high-density Hass and Gem blocks, we planted a row of young Luna trees every third row specifically to act as pollinators. Luna is a rare Type B variety developed by UC Riverside — we've had it on our ranch under a research agreement since 2016, years before its public release. Those small staked trees you see in our photos? They're already doing their job.

Enter the bees

The A/B timing system creates the opportunity for cross-pollination — but it still needs a messenger. We bring in 4 hives per acre during bloom season, a high-density rate designed to ensure every flower on every variety gets visited.

Our bees don't know they're doing something remarkable. They're simply moving from tree to tree in search of nectar — carrying pollen on their bodies from a Type A Hass to a Type B Luna, from a Gem to a Fuerte, completing transfers that would otherwise never happen. Each successful visit is a potential avocado.

A mature avocado tree can produce over a million flowers in a single season. Fewer than 200 of those will become fruit that actually makes it to harvest. The rest fall away naturally — the tree directing its energy toward the avocados it can best support.

What you're eating now was born in spring 2025

Here's something that surprises almost everyone: the avocados in your box right now were pollinated by bees over a year ago.

Our 2026 crop started as tiny flowers in spring 2025. Bees visited, pollen transferred, and small fruit began to set. Over the following months those beebees slowly grew, accumulating the rich oils and creamy texture that make a great avocado worth waiting for. By the time they reach your door, they've been on the tree for 12 to 18 months.

Right now, in spring 2026, our bees are doing it all over again. The beebees in our photos — barely larger than a marble — were pollinated just weeks ago. They won't be ready to pick until sometime in 2027.

That's the patience avocados require. And it's part of why every decision we make — organic certification, soil health, bee density, variety selection — matters so much. We're always farming two years ahead.

From flower to your door

The next time you slice open one of our avocados, consider the journey: a bee landed on a tiny flower on a warm spring morning in Somis, carried pollen from a Type B Luna or Fuerte to a Type A Hass or Gem, and set in motion 18 months of slow, careful growth — tended by a crew many of whom have worked this land for 25 years.

We think that story is worth telling. And we think it's worth tasting.

Curious which varieties are in season right now? Explore our Variety Subscription box →