Good Job!

It is very obvious that having two hives of bees at the Homestead has made a real difference in the pollination rate of the old apple trees around here.

These trees barely produced fruit the two years previous to getting the bees. Maybe even longer, I don't know.

What I do know is that there was not a single honey bee to be seen here for the whole summer of 2009 and the old apple trees showed it in their complete lack of fruit. That's why I started my first hive.

This spring, when it wasn't raining, you could hear the intense hum of worker bees as they climbed in and out of thousands of apple blossoms.

This is a huge plum on a tree we didn't even know was a plumb tree. I think it had never been pollinated before.

The trees that had the good fortune to bloom when it wasn't raining are absolutely covered in apples.

The trees that had the misfortune of blooming during a blast of bee free rain, are not so fortunate.

 

This year our "Canby" raspberries which have been under performing, with odd shaped fruit in the past, have beautiful plump fruits this year.
All in all I think that despite the fact that we are in the middle of miles of nature we are were lacking in pollinators for whatever reason.

 

Happily it seems our bees are having a really positive impact on the Homestead.