I am sure lots of the 'facts' in horticulture books, even in text books, is derived from studying previously published works, and not from independent research. Most of our pollination problems with the early bloomers like cherries is the air temperature remains cool during their bloom and the honey bees just don't like to work when they are cold. Al

Might I suggest you look into keeping Mason bees?
They have a lot going for them. Pound for pound they're far superior pollinators, and work in difficult conditions.
I now keep both Masons and Honey bees.

Here is a link that might be useful: Mason bees

The cold weather has had me watching my mason bees with some concern. They were indeed into the dandelions and flowering ground ivy [by which you know the state of my lawn] before the fruit trees opened.

Well, today my pollinators continue to ignore my dandelions. Gee, I hope the dandy seed crop isn't threatened.

Yes, I know about mason bees, but pollination has never been a problem for me, except for kiwis. I just worry a lot. At some point I may bring masons here anyway.

I've been saying this before..due to a late start this year from all that snow...or more snow we had, relates to what your'e seeing,...allot of things flowering at the same time, resulting in better cross pollination from good overlapping blooming time.
Perhaps wind pollination also? Honey bees allway's go to better nectar
and or pollen source, switching from dandelion to fruit trees.

A late start is always better,....
risk of night frost getting lower, you'll see that it will be a good year on apricots, plums & cherries.

>>but pollination has never been a problem for meWhy worry?

Here we still have good bumble bee activity...don't you have any?
Hopefully they will return but first, ..still have about a foot of snow to melt in the veggie garden.

Why worry? It comes with the fruit trees, part of the package.

But I agree with konrad - late is better. I'm hoping for apriums [apria] this year. The bees were all over them.

Late is better except for very late ripening varieties. Goldrush does better here with early springs. 2 years back summer didn't come here until August and that was too late.

Why worry? Because every season brings unexpected set-backs to go with the pleasant surprises. I worry the same reason most parents worry.

Harvestman, I also am a big fan of carpenter bees. I have a whole army of them and they probably pollinate each blueberry flower several dozen times in all their visits. Today every single bb flower has the marks on the side where they cut into it to get the nectar, and its like this every year and I never notice any aborting fruitlets ever. I think that some overly worried person saw the flower getting damaged and came to an unjustified conclusion that it affected the fruit formation. Along with the carpenter bees I also have many small wild bees that are my major pollinators, along with an occasional honeybee.

This year my Santa Rosa may have an OK fruit set, I see more plums fattening up than usual. The Flavor Supreme as usual has only a few though.

Scott

Cool condensed yours? I has mine dragging out. I don't ever recall my trees being in bloom this long.

We finally got some warm sunny days which got the pollinators out in force.
Remember last year or the year before I was wondering about them? I have no wonders this year.
Most are small solitaries and a few carpenters.

Oh yes, this year I had a Hairy Woodpecker attack my mason bee box.

I noticed when we bought our place in the fall of '09 that we seemed to have a LOT of honey bees. I was very pleased to see that. Not sure if maybe the folks that owned the orange orchard that has been abandoned, or maybe the working avocado orchard just above it are keeping bees. I have an entire hillside covered in lavender, rosemary, several large mature bunches of Pride of Madeira and I have 4 large ceanothus. All of which are absolutely covered in bees every day. If you walk out in my yard, you can hear my entire yard humming. It is really rather amazing. They never bother any of us, even though our pool is steps away from a huge rosemary and Spanish and French lavenders, but they never ever stop working. I end up with huge amounts of pollination for my citrus (hundreds of Meyer lemons for example), and I hope this will also be the same with stone fruit. My poor wee espaliered Anna, which is mostly in the shade (and my bees aren't very busy in the shade) already has 25 apples. So, maybe they've helped my little Anna. Almost all my bees are honeybees. I do have a fair amount of carpenter bees, but have never seen any damage to my house or other wooden structures. Some wasps and hornets, but usually later in the fall. Much less so than I remember in Indiana. I can't say I've seen any Mason bees, but maybe they're out there. I think keeping Mason bees sounds very interesting, though.

Patty S.

I guess I am lucky that there are about 200 bee boxes about 500 yards from my house. I am on one side of a freeway and the bees are one the other side. I have not had a pollination problem with my fruit trees or my berries so far.

Then last week I replaced a flowering plum tree in my front yard that had way too much lean on it with a Golden Honeylocust. Wow that tree is like a beacon of light to the bees. Even when I was putting the tree in his new home the bees were buzzing around me like it was catnip for them.

I have since noticed about twice the activity in my back yard. If you want to attract the bees plant one and watch the bee party begin.

Mykl, if the trees are in bloom they hold their flowers much longer in cool weather- but I assume you know this. In 20 years of watching fruit trees in the northeast, I've never seen a spring with so much overlap- such a rush of flowering.

I've long known that as you go farther south the spread from first to last bloomers increases- thanks to commentators on this and another forum. I wonder if Euro and J. plums can pollinate each other when they bloom at the same time. I can't find that out here, of course, having several different varieties of each in bloom. I know the early blooming Euro pears are compatible with A. pears.

This year the stone fruits and asian pears bloomed a long time since it was cool earlier, and the apples bloomed and dropped very fast since that was in the warmer period. In fact it was so fast that I wasn't watching and didn't get my Surround down in time and the earliest apples got hit by Mr. Curc. If my Santa Rosa ends up with a good load of plums I am going to chalk that up to the long bloom time it had.

Scott

"I wonder if Euro and J. plums can pollinate each other when they bloom at the same time."

Hman,

According to the literature Domestica and Salicina are not pollen compatible.

Thanks OP. I'm not surprised, but good to know, professor.

"Mykl, if the trees are in bloom they hold their flowers much longer in cool weather- but I assume you know this. In 20 years of watching fruit trees in the northeast, I've never seen a spring with so much overlap- such a rush of flowering."

I got to thinking out "condensed" had different meanings. Yours means all trees in flower at once (yes, mine are doing that too, almost, Rome had better hurry or it's going to be on its own) and mine means short (which is not happening this year).