Jon:
I have been asking myself question like those you have mentioned.
Snowball and nearly synchronous bloom is what I have on most varieties
here also; and with uncommonly warm temperatures I expected to see a lot of
eager honeybees in the trees these past several days. They were not there.
Nor in the dandelions that are more abundant than normal around the orchard.
Activity at the hives seemed decent, so I wondered whether a solid field of
dandelions somewhere else might be attracting them. My beekeeper opened
several hives and pointed out the light-colored pollen that had been packed
into frame cells…as well as some orange-colored pollen in other cells. He
said the lighter yellow indicates apple pollen, and the orange pollen is from
dandelions. I didn’t think to ask if the yellow pollen might have been put
there several days ago, before the hives were moved to my orchard, but he said
he could see bees returning to the hives with yellow pollen on their legs.
Today the maximum temperature was only 63F, briefly, and few bees were
out of the hives. While setting
up some trickle irrigation in my nursery I noticed honeybees buzzing among oak
leaves on the ground, under which a surface water-line ran. Bees had found a
small leak in the line and seemed to be very happy about it, as dozens of
honeybees soon appeared there. So I put water into a pail, with a short length
of wood, and floated a terrycloth towel on it. After about ten minutes there
dozens of bees spending time on that wet towel. I conclude that apple nectar
could not satisfy their thirst…if that is what they wanted water for.
David Kollas
Kollas Orchard
Tolland, Connecticut
On May 13, 2015, at 8:58 PM, Jon Clements <jon.cleme...@umass.edu> wrote:
> Mostly heavy, snowball bloom here in Massachusetts after modest crop last
> year. Not sure I have ever seen such a heavy bloom across the board. Temps.
> in mid to upper 80's preceding and during bloom really moved things along,
> bee activity was modest to good. There was so much bloom all at once bee
> activity might have been diluted? Very dry -- does that affect the
> attractiveness of bloom to bees? Less nectar production? Cold front moved
> through and now windy and much cooler, scattered frost possible in cold
> pockets. We're expecting good set and the need to thin aggressively. Heat
> raised the fire blight danger level, however, little wetting during bloom
> except for some showers here and there and dew. Will see how that plays out,
> lots of strep applied after last year. Only one apple scab infection period
> since April 21 (green tip), clean orchards could have delayed any fungicide
> application since then until the next rain, but that one will be a doozy
> probably. Somebody send us a little rain. Every year is so different...
>
> Jon
>
> On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 12:41 PM, Arthur Kelly <kellyorcha...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> I don't know about the rest of you but if we get any kind of pollination
> weather the crop will be very heavy and difficult to thin. The potential
> bloom at this point is scary. We are at pink except for cracking some king
> flowers on Zestar, Paulared, Gingergold etc.
>
> --
> Art Kelly
> Kelly Orchards
> Acton, ME
>
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>
>
> --
> Jon Clements
> aka 'Mr Honeycrisp'
> UMass Cold Spring Orchard
> 393 Sabin St.
> Belchertown, MA 01007
> 413-478-7219
> umassfruit.com
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