Little bees worked hard for the apple trees.

We had small bees working diligently to pollinate the Pink Lady and Granny Smith apple trees at the ACT Beekeepers Field Day yesterday. It was wonderful to watch how carefully the children brushed the pollen onto each of the flowers and then buzzed over to the other tree to cross pollinate it. Their wonderful help was rewarded with a delicious new season organically grown apple.

I was searching for more information about apple tree pollination and came across a fascinating report about Fruit Pollination and Technology in China and the effectiveness of different species of bees (8 different species of Honeybees, bumblebees and Asian bees) for pollination of apple and pear trees in a range of localities. In SW China, the cultivation of apple and pear trees is growing  each year, however due to environmental degradation and overuse of pesticides the number of wild pollinators has seriously declined and there are places where hand pollination has to be done which adds greatly to the costs. Not only is artificial pollination (people pollinating) more expensive, it is not nearly as effective as using particular species of honeybees.

Zhao Zhonghua et al. found that when using bee pollination for apple and pear, fruit yield was more than 20 higher than artificial pollination.

All in all, it certainly seems that bees know best how to pollinate and it’s up to all of us to provide environments where they can thrive.

Find out more about the best plants for your region and how to provide a year round bee banquet for your locals.