We grow blueberries,here in Madison, Wisconsin. Over the past 16 years, I have learned something about our native bees, & how to encourage them to live in our yard. I often see bumblebees feeding on blueberry blossoms, so I am pretty sure that this group is responsible for blueberry pollination. But we have many other kinds of bees here, including honeybees, green iridescent, black & white, carpenter bees, & mason bees. We have a patch of everbearing red raspberries, and that is where most of our bumblebees spend most of their time, after blooming begins, in July. The raspberry patch continues to bloom well into October. We have other plants growing here, including purple coneflower, columbine, milkweed, bee balm, liatris, larkspur, and new england aster. All of these are bee attractors. The new england astor is particularly important, because it blooms late, in September, and therefore it helps the bees get ready for winter. If you can get some flowering plants growing, you will enable the local bees to thrive, and they will pollinate your apple trees in the spring. Honeybees will feed on the same flowering plants, and they seem to get along with the native bees OK, so its not an either/or proposition. I expect that you will see some honeybees in your orchard, even if you do not set up a hive on your land.

Planted 2 years ago, from seed. Don't know what kind because daugther started it from one of her apples, so more then likely a crab. Yes the leaves did have spots and kind of light green in color (leaf), but now it went from that to now drying up but not falling off. The tree looked really good in the spring and I made sure that it was getting watered when there wasn't rain for long periods.

Scale insects. Probably the type known as Soft Scale. They excrete a sugary substance called honeydew. Squash or scrape off any you can find - often on the underside of leaves near the central rib. You can also remove them by spending time wiping each leaf and stem with a soft damp cloth. We don't know whereabouts in the world you live, so can't say what local remedies are available, but a horticultural oil spray is usually recommended. This works by smothering the insect rather than poisoning, so is almost a 'natural solution'. Various chemical sprays should also help.

What am I doing wrong? How many times do I water this a week? The tree when I bought it was almost neon green.Now it has faded.Help