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Over the last weekend, two of our neighbors have thanked us for our bees. Both say they planted fruit trees (apples and peaches) years ago, but never got any fruit from them. This year they have fruit.
We thanked them kindly, and accepted some preserves from the harvest, but we're not entirely sure our bees actually did it.
We are quite sure that our bees visit their property, and know that it is unlikely they've been visited by more than a few honeybees from other apiaries. We know the locations of the local hives, and the only other apiary at all in range would be around 2 miles or more distance, and have to negotiate a mountain gap and gain maybe 500 ft of altitude. Not impossible, but honeybee sightings in our neighborhood have been very rare until our bees went in this spring. But we have at least 4 species of bumblebees and many other native pollinators.
The catch is, our bees arrived May 7. I don't know the whole range of bloom dates on these, but I think the commercial pollenation dates were earlier than that.
But it is nice to know the bees are appreciated. If they didn't help out this spring, they definitely should next spring, providing the survive the winter in good order.
We thanked them kindly, and accepted some preserves from the harvest, but we're not entirely sure our bees actually did it.
We are quite sure that our bees visit their property, and know that it is unlikely they've been visited by more than a few honeybees from other apiaries. We know the locations of the local hives, and the only other apiary at all in range would be around 2 miles or more distance, and have to negotiate a mountain gap and gain maybe 500 ft of altitude. Not impossible, but honeybee sightings in our neighborhood have been very rare until our bees went in this spring. But we have at least 4 species of bumblebees and many other native pollinators.
The catch is, our bees arrived May 7. I don't know the whole range of bloom dates on these, but I think the commercial pollenation dates were earlier than that.
But it is nice to know the bees are appreciated. If they didn't help out this spring, they definitely should next spring, providing the survive the winter in good order.
