Bee Delivery

We got our bee hives for cherries about 2 weeks ago. Bill meets the contractor early in the morning to show her where to place the hives. During bloom season she stays in Wenatchee with her hives. The hives are trucked from north Idaho, where she lives, on a semi flat bed and stationed at a staging location. She then hauls hives, 6 hives /pallet, out to orchards on her list as requested.

She has a special 4-wheel drive forklift for hive placement. We use upside down apple bins to keep the hives off the cold ground.

According to Dr. Ed Proebsting, growers should have a minimum of 2 strong colonies of bees per acre. The hives should be placed where they receive early morning sun and they should be in groups of 4 - 12 to increase competition. 

This year we rented the following number of hives per acre for each of the different cherry blocks:

Rainiers - 4 hives/a = 12 hives total

Skeenas - 5 hives/a = 24 hives total

Gilbert Sweethearts - 2 hives/a but they also got the hives from the Skeenas since Skeena bloom had ended about the start of Sweetheart bloom = 24 hives total plus the 24 hives from the Skeenas next door

Castlerock Sweethearts - 3 hives/a = 18 hives total

Bill made the call yesterday to order hives for the Union Valley apples. We'll move the hives in the cherries to our apple blocks in Purtteman this week. Since next week's forecast is for warm weather, the hives will have to be moved in the early hours of the morning before the bees are active.

Most of our cherries are self fertile so they don't require a different cherry variety for pollination. Our Rainiers and Skeenas need other pollen sources even though the Skeenas are suppose to be self fertile. We use an ATV applicator to apply pollen that we order for the Rainiers and Skeenas. Based on multiple conversations with field staff, we decided to go with a Sweetheart and Lapin blend of pollen for the Rainiers and a Chinook and Chelan blend for the Skeena block.

The pollen arrives Fed Ex frozen ready for application. It stays frozen until Bill pulls it out of the cooler to mix the pollen aid carrier mix with the pollen. The Rainiers needed 4 applications at different stages of bloom. The Skeenas required 3 applications.

The pollen and pollen aid carrier mix come in separate bags and require mixing at the time of application. Bill has poured the pollen into the pollen aid carrier mix bag and is mixing them together.

Bill is pouring the combination into the hopper. He has already calibrated the blower for the application by using powdered sugar.

Hey Joe, this picture's for you! An epic Rainier bloom! Bill makes sure his ground speed is no faster than 10 mph in order to achieve good coverage. The temperature should be at least 55 degrees Fahrenheit and winds no more than 6 mph.

Hey Joe, here's another one for you! 

Overall our cherry bloom was very good on all our blocks. The pollination weather for the Rainiers and Skeenas was very good. This past week, the weather for the Sweethearts has been OK. It was a little cooler, and we had one day of rain. The Sweethearts had a large field force of bees to help with the cooler temperatures. We don't want all of the Sweethearts to set because that might compromise our cherry size. We need big cherries that are larger than 11 row to be sold organically.