There are only a handful of bee brokers in Australia. Each year, they coordinate millions of bees and hundreds of beekeepers across states to pollinate Australia's booming almond orchards in northern Victoria.

When the bee trucks hit the highways just before spring with more than 1.5 billion bees on board, it's the biggest movement of livestock in Australian history. And yes, the Australian Tax Office classifies bees as livestock.

"I have had people describe my job as like trying to round up cats on a horse," joked Trevor Monson, now in his fortieth year of bee broking.

Each winter, Mr Monson books in beekeepers and ensures they deliver fit, healthy bees on time and ready to work the flowers.

"We get contracts from the almond company and then we source bees to fill that contract," he said.

"We plan on where the bees are going, we design the hive drops, and we audit 10 per cent of the bees so we're satisfied they're worth being paid.

"We do all the financing and send out the cheques, and then send the bees home again."

This season, Mr Monson contracted 200 beekeepers to deliver 110,000 hives. Almond company Select Harvest's central operations manager, Jason Robinson, said it is a job he would not want.

"I wouldn't go near Trevor's job, it's crazy what [he's] got to do," he said.

This year, Mr Monson's northernmost bees came from Queensland's Sunshine Coast. Beekeeper Rex Carruthers has been trucking bees to Victoria for 15 years.

In just 12 days, he made three return trips south to deliver 21 million bees in almost 1,500 hives.

"It's been a pretty stressful year this year because of the drought, we've done nothing but work on bees for six months to try and get them in pretty good order," he said.

The bees have four weeks to pollinate hundreds of thousands of flowering almond trees before Mr Carruthers does another three round trips to truck them home. On arrival, he drops his beehives at designated spots around the orchards. After a quick orientation flight, they get to work.

"They don't seem to mind they've come from a 26-degree day to about an eight-degree one," he said.

"They're amazing little insects, they've been on the truck for 22 hours in the cold and the night and as soon as it is warm enough, they're out flying looking for food and water straight away."

Traditionally low returns for beekeepers who provide pollination services have improved markedly in recent years due to the boom in almond, avocado, macadamia nut, and blueberry plantings.

"After freight and feeding, they can net $100 a hive," Mr Monson said.

"The beauty of it is, it's a guaranteed spring cheque.

"If you had a thousand hives, that's $100,000 and it sets you up for the year."

Due to water scarcity, the almond industry has imposed a moratorium on new plantings. But Mr Monson will need to find 50,000 extra hives in the next few years to meet the demand to pollinate maturing trees.

"It is a grave concern, I do see the pollination will be the major focus of the majority of bees in time to come as it has been around the world," he said.

He's also worried about where the next generation of beekeepers will come from.

"We need to be aware that the beekeeping industry is like many others; the lack of new entrants and the ageing workforce is an extremely big problem," he said.

He plans to hand his bee-broking business over to his sons in three years when he turns 75. Those years will be his most challenging, as he does not know where he is going to find so many extra bees.