A cherry blossom is wilderness enough if you're a bee.
Charles Kuralt
May Day and my little six tree orchard is a buzz with bees. Just days ago the trees were in stage "pink," buds swelling, blossoms clenched like springs waiting to be tripped by the sun. Today every tree is a canopy of white, each blossom inviting a bee to ravage its nectar and pollen. It's a symbiosis older than the hills: bees take the pollen and nectar to nourish their brood, build a strong population that will harvest sufficient stores to winter the colony over until next season. In turn, the bees set the fruit that produces the seed to propagate new saplings, and thus the cycle continues. Each blossom must be "kissed" by a bee several times before the fruit is set.
I was raised on an apple ranch among acres of apple and pear trees. Each year my dad, a longtime orchardist, kept a bloom chart in early spring, the figures of which were computed by a special thermometer that recorded the day's high and low temperatures. Dad would check it every evening and reset the instrument for the following day. Although the numbers and degrees escape me, the general idea behind the routine was to record all daily temps over a certain benchmark. When the tally reached a certain number--so many degrees beyond the benchmark--the apple and pear trees would be in full bloom. The accumulated degrees told Dad when to order the honeybee colonies for pollination. This was a long time ago and my memory is fuzzy on the numbers, but I believe Dad said in order to pollinate the season's crop, four colonies per acre of producing orchard were required.
It was always an exciting time when the bees arrived. We kids quickly learned to stay clear of the stands of bees for a day or two as they tended to be cranky from the jostling of their hives and suddenly finding themselves in a strange land. But upon discovering the many acres of beckoning blossoms, the bees quickly set to work with a purpose and dismissed any curious child who may have strayed into their space. I remember my dad saying that when the orchard was in full bloom and the temps in the upper 70's, the bees could set a season's crop in just one day.
May first, May Day. Today I welcomed more honeybees to our one slim acre, a "nuc" hive from
Old Sol Bees in Rogue River, Oregon, a replacement colony for my daughter's hive that didn't survive the winter. A nuc (short for "nucleus") is a small colony with an established laying queen, her attendants and a mass of brood, capped and ready to emerge, soon to be a honey producing hive and gives the beekeeper a head start on the season's honey crop. In early afternoon I transferred them to their new home. The day was warm and sunny. No sooner had I set the hive lid in place than the field workers began orienting themselves.
These bees came from out of state, a long ways from home, but bees are genetically imprinted for orientation. Long before Google Earth and GPS bees were finding their way to and from their hive regardless of whatever strange, new location in which they might find themselves. In less than two hours these bees transported from a nearly a thousand miles away had located pollen sources and were already at work packing it back to their new home.
As the bees flit forth and go about their business, I'm thinking: applesauce, apple pie, apple butter, apple cobbler, apple cider, apple slices for the grandsons, apple/quince preserves... cherry pie, cherry cobbler, cherry jelly.... Remarkable creatures, those bees....
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This is so neat. I was just engaged in discussion earlier this month about how the commercial beekeepers know when to bring the bees right before the flowers bloom. Thanks for my nuc. Looks good, they just chased me away from it. 💜
ReplyDeleteWhen I worked for commercial beekeeper Joe Holt, I learned the other side of the story about the relationship between orchardists and beekeepers. When growers wanted the bees, they wanted them pronto. Sometimes bad weather delayed full bloom and then on the first sunny day, the orchardists picked up the phone crying for bees. It was the beekeeper who had to have a flexible schedule to accommodate the farmer. Then when the bloom faded and the crop was set, back to the phone again urging the beekeeper to come pick up his bees so the first pesticide of the season could be applied. Other than the fact the growers knew how important the bees were to their bottom line, most had no idea about honeybee orientation and oftentimes would move colonies to new locations for "better" coverage which led to piles of bees on the ground wondering where their hive disappeared to. After working for Joe, I had a better understanding of the demands growers made on the beekeepers and oftentimes seemed to think their business was the more important of the two. Hopefully these days there's a better working relationship between grower and beekeeper. Thanks for reading...TMJ
DeleteWhat years did you work for Joe Holt? I was born and raised in the bee business and I worked for Joe in 1978.
ReplyDeleteHi, Randy, I was a bit before your time. I worked for Joe in 1966 or '67. (Memory escapes me.) I've had bees since I was fourteen but my working for Joe was my first experience with commercial beekeeping. The orchardist my dad worked for used Joe's bees for pollination. My first meeting with Joe was when I helped yard out a truckload of bees at the orchard. It was either that spring or the next Joe hired me to help with pollination in the Wenatchee/E. Wenatchee area. I used his little 3/4 ton flatbed truck to distribute bees up river in the Brewster/Bridgeport area...once as far north as Twisp. I was attending Jr. College at the time and the paycheck came in handy. I only worked that one season during blossom time. "Honey Joe" they called him, a quiet spoken, easy going man who loved bees and was a pleasure to work for. Thanks for stopping by my blog. TMJ
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