I pollinated apples in Watsonville, California for years. They needed bees for the Red and Golden Delicious. Bees were not needed in the Newtown Pippins. The Newtown Pippins completed their bloom two weeks before the Delicious and required Sevin thinning when the Delicious were at peak bloom.

Monterey County used a cut-off date for beekeeper notification, and published it in a local paper. When the time for the Newtown Pippin spraying came up, they published the announcement, and after that Sevin could be sprayed anywhere in the county without notification to beekeepers.

Pippin orchard blocks were interspersed throughout the county with Delicious blocks, which meant that my bees were exposed to drift from right across the fencelines and roads. The orchard floors were covered with blooming weeds, fiddleneck, chamomile, mustards, and so on. One of my orchard growers had almost 40 other individual orchardists within one mile who grew Pippins. Coordinating with them was impossible, and they were not interested in returning my telephone calls.

The last spring I did it I just began to take my bees out of the county the night before the spray date. This caused a great political crises, because my growers had no bees at peak bloom. They woke up the Ag commissioner at midnight, who re-instated the Sevin ban for another week. The Pippin growers howled. That was my last year.

The orchards were awkward, with scattered bees, many blocks, mud, and distance. At $15 per colony and the constant risk of spray, it just wasn't worth it.

Kevin

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