Pollination Flashcards
When should hives be placed on fields to be pollinated?
Move hives into the crop after some flowering has already begun. If you move them in before the crop blooms, you give bees a chance to forage on another non-target plant such as Dutch clover. Once bees are trained to such competing flowers, they often ignore the crop when it blooms.
How should hives be placed near plants to be pollinated?
Although honey bees can fly several miles, they prefer to work within 300 feet of their hive. For this reason, by putting groups of hives at 500-foot intervals (about 0.1 mile) within a field, you can place the whole field within ordinary bee foraging range. If the interior of a field is inaccessible, you can group hives around the edges. In these cases, the center of the field is less likely to be visited by bees, but you can remedy this by putting more colonies in the center-most groups along the field edge; this increases competition and forces bees to forage deeper into the field.
Place hives in ample sunlight and do not place them in low areas which accumulate cool, damp air. Chilly, shaded bees are poor pollinators. As much as possible, keep hives away from farm workers, pedestrians and livestock.
