Just a few of my flowering fruit tree’s are fully out, there is pears, and the plums in a full swing, the haskups are putting out a few (not bad considering they only got planted last year) and many many more are like the apples tree buds photo.. getting there.. but while I did see ants, and bettles I didn’t see a single bee on any of these tree’s or flowers.. I put the blame on having that dang GMO corn fill the fields around me last year..
We will have to get our little paint brushes and make sure our fruit tree’s get good movement of pollen to increase our possible end production. I might also pop into my closest bee keeper and see if there is any chance at all that he might be willing to put a hive on my place for the year..
Just another Day on the Farm 
Your bloom is in full swing, if you’re going to get a hive, you’d better ask TODAY. Once the bees start to build up brood and honey stores, they get too heavy to move safely/easily (and more bees mean more defensive action, if you get my drift; )
Any beekeeper would LOVE to have a yard full of hives on your farm (but that GMO corn next door – not so much):
Several NEONICOTINOIDs banned in Europe, just last week.
This year he is doing soybeans on the land next, and there are a lot of hay fields near by as well but I hear you, with the amount of sunflowers that I am planting this year, I would expect that would be considered a added bonus to the things that are available on the farm for feeding the bee’s, but I hear you! I will have to do it a bit later, I am off to the city to meet Callie K for a lunch date today!
Enjoy your time off!!
Your intentionally planted crops, fruit trees, bushes, etc. are indeed a great draw for pollinators BUT, even more importantly, you are also surrounded by pasture, wetlands and woodlands that are packed with wild flowers like Pin Cherry, Red and Green Alder, Dame’s Rocket, Joe Pye Weed, Milkweed, Dandelion, Golden Rod, Blue Burr, Asters, all with staggered/overlapping bloom times to enable a fairly constant nectar supply…
You also have undisturbed spaces on the farm, like the hedgerows between fields. Unfortunately, in a lot of places, (agri-business) farmers are removing the breaks between fields where native pollinators, songbirds and other natural insect predators nest and draining off the low lying wet places where they drink, to enable the use of ever larger, and more expensive machinery. This, to me at least, seems a very short-sighted, counter-productive way to “produce food”; it’s as though suddenly, all the centuries of hard won knowledge from generations of farmers no longer has any value.
Lets hope they are banned over here soon as well.. he is very good about things like that..
We all need to make our preference known, or it will NOT happen.
Until you mentioned it, I really hadn’t paid attention to the fact there were no bees at mom’s. I guess I should pay more attention.
Working at mom’s on the Sunday & Monday. She is surrounded by very old fruit farms, planted long before GMO. No bees around her place either. Working on my front garden in the heart of the city I had a wee visit with 2 very small, fat bumble bees.