somerset orchard in winter

[Bcrazy]

Hey Taff,

I am in full agreement with RAB regarding a long period of the same pollen being taken back to the hive. The duration of the pollen from apples lasts for a good six weeks. Imagine being feed the same food for three weeks before hatching out. Bees do need a variation in the composition of food to gain the maximum amount of goodness for growth.
Do you take a sample of pollen and find out what goodness the bees get from a specific pollen?

Regards;

 

[grizzly]

Like the pollen image Taff, also wouldnt mind an updated shot of the original image when the blossom arrives.

 

[oliver90owner]

What I wrote: It's also a mono-culture crop, so bad for the bees, unless they have other forage available after

Nothing really unusual there. I qualified my statement(unless....) I personally think any large area of monoculture crop is bad for bees. That goes for OSR, wheat, sugarbeet and grass and peas(?). There might be exceptions, but availability of mixed forage over a prolonged period seems to be good for the bees and the extra nectar flows are good for the beekeeper, as a bonus. If it is not good it must be either neutral or bad.

I was asking, really, if apples are a good crop for the bees - hence are the bees are doing a service of pollination, rather than enhancing their stores situation, as I have no experience of that. If the weeds are sprayed off there may not be much other nectar available in the orchards and they may have to go and forage elsewhere for the rest of the year. That in my view might be a disadvantage of a large area of orchard. No need to get a strop on. Argue your case and I and the rest will make up our minds on it on any information supplied.

Might even be bad if there are a lot of wasps nests too!

RAB

 

[taff..]

Apples always seems to be a pollination, rather than a honey, crop.

RAB is an expert, he has had bees in orchards and decided they dont have a high large enough honey crop

I was asking, really, if apples are a good crop for the bees - hence are the bees are doing a service of pollination, rather than enhancing their stores situation, as I have no experience of that.
RAB

Oh maybe not

 

[The Hyde Ranger]

Yum Yum x 2 BLACKBERRY and apple pies

When You soak the blackberrys to remove the magots does it remove the magot droppings aswell ?

 

[MJBee]

Zut alors - in la belle France we have the hornet which eats the flies that lay the eggs that hatch into maggots ergo no maggots. Sadly the wild blackberries, lots of them in our area, are very small and very seedy and therefore awful- too DRY. My cultivated ones are however delicious

To get back on thread from Taffs picture I would not call his orchard a "monoculture" by any stretch of the imagination. The area it covers is a very small percentage of the forage area covered by the bees. To put it in human terms, if you have a supermarket available you don't live on beans for 3 weeks - or perhaps you do

 

[Bcrazy]

Taff

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.
Why can't we all asses what each are saying instead of getting all bitchy.
If opinions are not seen to be in line with members thinking then they should express their views as a counter for consideration.
We all have one thing in common and that's the welfare of our bees.

Regards;

 

[VEG]

Maybe people should take a moment before posting a comment on a thread and think along the lines of what would I think if this was a reply to one of my posts. A lot of posts are innocent enough only for some one to have a go for no reason. If anything is unclear in the post ask a question in a polite manner not go accusing some one of some wrong doin . As said above we all have the bees welfare at heart

 

[grizzly]

Good Point Veg, this forum has changed somewhat since i joined in 2008, and not always in a good way. (by forum i mean thread content and membership, the forum itself is fab)

Yes have a pop if you like, but its true.

Sorry Taff, to go off on a tangent on your thread.