Today in the orchard
Swarming bees, Finley Lane, May 27, 2025
It was warm and sunny for the second day in a row. The cold weather appears to have damaged some of the flowers, but I think we should get decent pollination. Skylar and I inventoried the bloom on all the trees at Finley Lane. Many trees are flowering for the first time. We also hand-pollinated a second Frostbite tree with pollen collected from Black Oxford, Gray Pearmain and Westfield-Seek-No-Further.
It was a spectacular day in the orchard. The black flies thought so too. There were zillions of them out there keeping us company. With all this rain the streams are flowing with gusto, and flowing water means black flies. It was challenging to think with hundreds of them crawling over our faces. Argh!! The highlight of the day was the swarm of 45,000 bees (or so) that collected on one of the Wickson trees. That was amazing.
