How to pollinate blackberries with bees

How to organize pollination of blackberries by bees

Blackberry is an important berry crop in many countries, therefore, several hundred varieties of blackberries are cultivated, hundreds of thousands of hectares of land are occupied by blackberry plantations. One of the methods of growing blackberries and obtaining large yields is to carry out pollination of blackberry plantations by bees. How to pollinate blackberries with bees.

• Features of blackberry pollination
• How many bees do you need to pollinate blackberries
• Features of pollination by blackberry bees
• How to place hives in a blackberry plantation for pollination
• When to place hives in a blackberry plantation for pollination

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Features of blackberry pollination

Blackberries usually have white flowers with four petals. The stigma is surrounded by 50 to 100 anthers. The nectar in the blackberry flower is produced in the calyx at the base of the petals. Blackberry flowers begin to produce nectar as soon as they open and continue to produce nectar until the petals fall off. Many varieties of blackberries have been created, each variety has a different degree of self-fertility. Therefore, farmers often place several different varieties of blackberries on the same plot at once to ensure cross-pollination.

It is important, when planting blackberries, to find out the characteristics of the variety as to whether the variety in question needs to be cross-pollinated. But the vast majority of blackberry varieties need additional pollination by bees, which carry pollen on the stigma of the pistil and thus improve the blackberry yield. The stigmas are receptive during the first three days after the flowers open.

Someone can say, if the variety is self-fertile, then why bees for pollination? Even a self-fertile variety, after pollination by honey bees, gives higher yields. Last but not least, pollination by bees gives better fruits that have a more marketable appearance, the berries are beautiful and large. One of the experiments showed that in the case of pollination of blackberries by bees, the same number of berries remained on the bushes as without pollination, but the number of rejected fruits decreased from 50% to 8%.

Calculations showed that the net additional profit for the producer, after paying the beekeeper for the rent of bees, from pollination amounted to 1876 dollars per hectare.

Honey bees willingly visit blackberries to collect pollen and nectar, which has a certain influence on the organization of pollination of blackberries by bees.

How many bees do you need to pollinate blackberries

For commercial production, it is important to get the highest possible yield of high quality blackberries, so it is important for them to create a density of bees sufficient for good blackberry pollination.

How many hives do you need to pollinate blackberries?

On plantations, as a rule, blackberries are grown on trellises with a distance between bushes of 1.5–2.0 m. That gives a density of 1430-2670 blackberry bushes per 1 hectare.

The average time to visit a blackberry flower is eight seconds, with honey bees most active on blackberries from 10:00 am to 4:30 pm. 

Many sources indicate that 2 hives per hectare of blackberries are enough to get sufficient pollination.

In different regions, due to the climate, there may be some features in the speed of visiting one flower and the period of visiting blackberries by bees. For this reason, in Australia, the recommended bee densities for pollinating blackberries are between 2 and 10 hives per hectare.

The number of hives needed to pollinate blackberries will be affected by weather conditions, the presence of competing honey plants, and other factors.

Features of pollination by blackberry bees

How to place hives in a blackberry plantation for pollination

For pollination of blackberries by bees, the hive must be arranged in such a way that the bees fly along the rows, and not across the rows. There are many similarities in the arrangement of hives for pollination of blackberries with the arrangement of hives for pollination of grapes. If the hive is placed incorrectly, this will reduce the flight activity of the bees and, consequently, the degree of pollination, since the bees will tend to work along, and not across, the rows of pollinated plants.

The hives should be spaced at small intervals at the beginning of the rows, rather than collecting the entire apiary in one place at the edge of the field.

For pollination of blackberries, strong colonies are needed, in which there is a lot of brood.

Blackberries emit a lot of pollen, and in some regions it can be a good honey plant, so it makes sense to install a pollen collector and take some of the blackberry pollen that bees carry to the hive, this will also allow you to control the attendance of blackberry flowers by bees.

To increase the flight activity of bees, bee-bread can be removed from the hive.

Blackberry is a good honey plant, and therefore no additional training of bees is required for visiting blackberry flowers by bees. However, in the presence of competing melliferous vegetation, it would be useful to give the bees a rejecting top dressing so that the bees would focus on pollinating the blackberries.

When to place hives in a blackberry plantation for pollination

Since blackberry flowers are usually very attractive to bees, it is necessary to place the hives on the plantation at the beginning of flowering. This period is also important because the amount of pollen in flowers is high at the beginning of flowering. and during full flowering and decreases towards the end of flowering. Therefore, setting up hives with bees at the beginning of flowering contributes to the maximum transfer of pollen and maximum yield.

Thus, pollination by bees can significantly increase the yield of marketable blackberries.