Hi,
I am starting a home orchard in East Central Florida (Brevard County). I have about 30-40 trees planted in my lot including apples, apricots, peaches, citrus (several different varieties), mangos, pears, etc. You may know that mason bees are not indigenous to my area so I have to rely on wild populations of honey bees. I don't know where these bees come from but they visit my yard when any of my citrus trees are in bloom. However, they completely ignore the few blooms coming from my apple trees. Is it possible for bees to become acclimated to one specific type of fruit tree and ignore all the rest? We have a big citrus industry in Florida so my guess is that these wild bees broke off from one of those traveling colonies used to pollinate the various citrus orchards in the state. Given their propensity to visit citrus trees I am concerned they will ignore all the other fruit trees I have planted when they begin to bloom. Should I be concerned? If so is starting my own orchard mason bee colony later on my best option?
Thanks,
Juan
Honeybees give priority to what has the largest mass of blossoms regardless of the plant, the exceptions being flowers without much nectar or pollen, and flowers that are not physically suited for honeybees.
If citrus blossoms have more bee food per blossom than apples, the bees might have a preference.
Here, most bees come from hobbyist beekeepers rather than from the wild or from industry beekeepers.
During the peak bloom of my Styrax tree in the front yard, blackberries in the back yard still get plenty of bee visits.
Perhaps your apple trees will need to be more mature to attract bee attention.
And it only takes one or two bees to pollinate hundreds of blossoms, your apple tree may be getting some action, it would just take longer to observe it compared to the citrus.
https://www.newscientist.com/a.....ting-bees/
Interesting article making good points about the importance plants place on conveying information to a bee.
I thought maybe the bees might have been attracted by the fragrance of the citrus flowers. I have some decidous fruit trees like apples, apricots, plums, pears, peaches etc. but I don't have a lot of experience with them. In my life we have grown mostly citrus plants or mango (a sub tropical stone fruit). Those trees keep their leaves year round and when they bloom the aroma is fantastic and very strong. In contrast I saw a video the other by Tom Spellman from Dave Wilson nursery where he mentioned that most decidous fruit tree blossoms do not have much odor. When my Meyer lemon bloomed earlier this year (February) the odor was wonderful and very pungent. It drove the honey bees mad. They were hopping from flower to flower greedily collecting pollen. Some beetles were even eating some of my flowers. I surmised they must like the aroma of the blossom as much as I do. The same thing happened when my key limes bloomed just a few days ago. The honey bees are all over it. This time I even see some wasps visiting the flowers. Yet my Anna apple and Dorsett Golden apple blooms were completely ignored. It is true the Meyer lemon and Key Lime have been in the ground for almost two years now whereas the apple just under a year. So maybe that has something to do with it. Thankfully the Anna apple is partially self fertile so despite the pollinators ignoring it I still have two small apples growing on there. Not so for the Dorsett Golden. I had to manually pollinate its blooms by brushing a felt tip with Anna bloom pollen over the flowers. I think I was somewhat successful as 3 of the 5 Dorsett blooms appear to be closing up and swelling at the base. Time will be the ultimate test. I hope you are right and the bees will begin to pay attention to the apples once they start to flower more. I have a Fuji and a Pink Lady that are not self fertile so without pollinators I am not going to get much fruit from them.
Also feeding your wild populations sugar water through hummingbird feeders should also help. Bees can be discriminate to gather only pollen when that's all that they need. Yes, I used to raise bees as a teenager through a glass window.
Hummingbird feeders carrying sugar water for bees is only something I found on the internet just now so I have not seen it work before. One place used a sponge to soak across the bird feeder to make it bee friendly.
In my yard I get a ton of bee activity on pear which are notoriously short on nectar. The bees are always just brushing against the anthers for the pollen and never looking for nectar. Since I do have mason bees, I never see many on the pear. I assume the mason bees deplete nectar from the pear flowers very fast in the morning and the honey bees are fed sugar water at home by the owner.
Honeybees are a social insect as it is useful but at the same time dangerous also. A do-it-yourself remedy may be your preferred choice for bee removal but to a to get rid of your bee problem, call a bee removal Fairfield county CT company. Sure you may have killed all the bees but if you do not appropriately remove the hives and remove the scent the bees will return or the hives could cause some costly damage to your home.
Hey Juan,
I’ve noticed, and have been told honey bees do have preferences between fruit trees. But with the number of fruit trees you plan to plant ..I’m sure some strays will find more than your citrus.
The concern I’d have is anything that consistently comes into peak bloom ‘exactly’ the same time as a slightly more ‘desirable’ flower. Otherwise, I suspect there’d be enough bloom overlap that for ‘just long enough’ everything in bloom will be attractive to something.
With that, bees are not the only pollinators. I’ve been amazed on a moonlit night by the amount of small moth activity taking place on a European plum tree I had! There was easily ten times the activity you’d see during the day with honey bees. And, you must have native bumble bees, too ..slow, but sure. As mentioned, it doesn't take an abundance of bee action to pollinate these flowers ..heck, hummingbirds may do it!
To me, the problem has been incompatible pollinators, as in fruit trees that do not cross as expected or described… Or, the opposite - too much pollination, culminating in over-sets and the need for serious (and tedious) thinning.
And I don’t think it’s primarily ‘the odor’ or fragrance that attracts pollinators, only we humans ..along with anything red or pink! The inferred patterns of blossom petals and abundance of nectar and/ or pollen most attractive to bees likely play a role unknown to most humans… As long as you have viable pollen combinations - with sufficient bloom overlap between specific varieties, you should have fruit development & production.
I hope you're right. I have to wait and see. Unfortunately for me local ordinances prohibit the keeping of honey bee colonies on my property. They are afraid it might be a threat to children. I don't really blame them as there are a lot of children in my neighborhood. I have seen some bumble bees in my property in the past. Actually this is a rather sad topic for me. I used to have a large and very production Mexican Bluebell bush in my garden which attracted lots of bumble bees. It was also used by some non-venemous snakes as a place of cover. One of my family members has a phobia of snakes and she convinced me to remove that bush. Since I did I have not seen the bumble bees return. Those Mexican bluebell flowers were perfect for the bumble bees. They bloom continually and are very long tube like flowers so that only the bumble bee or some other insect with a very long tongue can get to the nectar. Not a day goes by that I don't regret the decision to tear out that bush. I have told my family member she better get used to the snakes because I am not going to tear out any more flowering plants because of her phobias.
I agree with you Juan. Remember that some trees, like pears have pollen that is not particularly attractive to bees, like Viron said. You probably have native bees there. We have mason bees, and I have set up homes for them. My fruit set is enormous. I also noticed tiny pollinators going crazy over my parsley, until my wife hacked it up. Oh well. Over time, the bees will remember as you plant more pollinating plants and you will have more bees and more fruit.
John S
PDX OR
The honeybees were going wild on my filbert trees the last week of January. This year's crop of filberts is the fullest set I've seen. The honeybees are hard at it on the my chestnut trees this week. My chestnuts are just getting established but I have three different varieties in bloom so I'm hoping for a good crop. Last year was the first year I got any chestnuts, three dozen nuts from one tree.
Idyllwild
jafar
Marsha H
Viron
John S
1 Guest(s)