How to pollinate an apple tree with bees

Features of pollination of apple trees by honey bees 

The apple tree is the main fruit crop in our country, as well as throughout Europe and beyond. So, for example, in Belarus, almost 80% of the area under fruit and berry plantations is the area occupied by apple trees.

Apple flower features

Apple flowers are bisexual, the stigma matures 2-3 days earlier than the anthers. The lifespan of a flower, depending on the variety, is 4-8 days. Honey productivity and the degree of self-sterility vary greatly depending on the variety and external conditions. More than 80% of apple trees grown on the territory of the former USSR are completely or partially self-sterile (self-infertile), and only about 20% are self-fertile (self-fertile). When cross-pollinated by bees, even self-fertile varieties give an increased yield of better quality fruits, sugar content increases by about 1%, and acidity decreases by 0.2-0.8%.

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The Importance of Pollinating Apple Trees

With insufficient pollination of the flowers of the apple tree, a large fall of the formed ovaries occurs, and the ripening of the fruits, regardless of their location on the crown of the tree, is slow and with a significant delay. The fruits themselves are mostly small, underdeveloped, irregular in shape and with various injuries.

Full pollination of apple trees by bees has an exceptional effect on the yield of the orchard, the quantity and quality of seeds; nature, size, viability, germination of seeds, etc., increase significantly, and when seeds are sown, seedlings from them turn out to be more benign and seedlings develop more powerful and resistant.

In addition to the effect of protegyny, some varieties of apple trees are characterized by an unequal ratio of the length of the style of the pistil and stamens, which can affect the pollination process. Without the help of insects, pollen cannot land on the stigma of its pistil.

Pollination by bees

Especially great is the importance of bees for pollinating large industrial plantations of apples, in particular palmette orchards, in which the ecology of growth and pollination of apple trees has changed qualitatively. High tree planting density, fallow soil content in orchards, widespread use of pesticides, all this has sharply reduced the number and species composition of wild pollinators, so honey bees are the main pollinators for such gardens. In modern conditions, wild pollinators are not able to provide effective pollination of gardens.

In the conditions of Belarus, as a rule, apple trees bloom in the third decade of May and the mass flowering of apple trees lasts five to six days.

Bees most actively visit those varieties of apple trees that produce the largest amount of sugar per day.

How to get bees to pollinate apple trees

To attract bees to varieties of apple trees that produce little sugar in the nectar, you can use the method of training bees. It lies in the fact that flowers of the exact variety that needs additional pollination are added to sugar syrup and are distributed to bee families.

If it is necessary to attract bees to two mutually pollinated varieties of apple trees, then the bees are fed with flavored sugar syrup, alternating the flavoring of the syrup with flowers of either one or the second grade.

How many bees are needed for full pollination of apple trees

For normal pollination and fertilization of apple flowers, 4-10 times visits by bees to each flower are required.

The largest fruits are obtained from the first flowers, therefore, for pollination of the apple tree by bees, the apiary must be taken out at the very beginning of flowering.

If the garden is old, a large number of flowers form on the trees, in such cases, the norm of bees for pollination is one bee colony per 2 hectares of the garden, which may well ensure the work of 4-9 bees for every thousand flowers, which is enough for a good harvest.

If the garden is young, as a rule, the number of flowers in it is limited, and in this case, three or four families of bees should be placed per hectare and they are in the garden during the entire flowering period.

As a rule, during the flowering period of an apple tree, bees willingly visit its flowers and pay little attention to competing honey plants.

How to control the quality of pollination by bees of apple trees

To control the density of pollinators, they use the observation of how many bees work for 1000 apple blossoms. 13-17 bees per 1000 apple-tree flowers may well provide the formation of 9.4-10.1% of the useful ovary and ensure a yield of 318-449 centners per hectare.

For pollination of apple trees in modern industrial orchards of an intensive type, the optimal number of bee colonies is set at the rate of 2 bee colonies per 1 hectare of the orchard area.

Features of pollination by bees of apple trees

Strong bee colonies are used for pollination in gardens, weak colonies work much worse for pollination.

Hives in apple orchards are placed in such a way that there is no more than 500-600 m to the farthest edge of the orchard. It is advisable to place groups of hives in such a way as to organize counter-pollination. At the same time, groups of hives are placed at a distance of no more than 1 km from each other.

The use of an apiary in an apple orchard can provide a profitability level of 124.4%.