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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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From:
Richard Cryberg <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sat, 30 Jan 2016 03:13:16 +0000
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I have about 25 big blue berry bushes within 150 feet of my hives.  Those bushes yield 15 gallons of berries in a good year and four or five in a poor year.  In both cases they feed a bunch of birds.  Birds probably get half the yield in a poor year.  When in bloom they are white with flowers.  I see bumbles on them and other native insects.  I seldom ever see a honey bee on them.  I do not know how a honey bee could make any living at all on blue berries.  If there is nothing else for them to work I suppose they must work them.  But give them options and they are someplace else.  If the bees are on a monoculture and have to work them it is hard to think they would come out in good shape unless you fed a lot.  Honey bees can not even get in the top of the flower.  They go in the side between the petals from what I have seen.  I do not remember seeing any honey bees with pollen on their pollen sacks on my blue berries.  Here is a link that confirms some of my observations:

http://www.pollinator.ca/bestpractices/blueberries.html

Dick


" Any discovery made by the human mind can be explained in its essentials to the curious learner."  Professor Benjamin Schumacher talking about teaching quantum mechanics to non scientists.   "For every complex problem there is a solution which is simple, neat and wrong."  H. L. Mencken

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