How to organize blackberry pollination by bees
Blackberries are an important berry crop in many countries, so several hundred varieties of blackberries are cultivated; hundreds of thousands of hectares of land are occupied by blackberry plantations. One of the techniques for growing blackberries and obtaining large yields is to pollinate blackberry plantations with bees. How to pollinate blackberries using bees.
Content
- Features of blackberry pollination
- How many bees are needed to pollinate blackberries?
- Features of bee pollination of blackberries
- How to Place Hives in a Blackberry Plantation for Pollination
- When to Place Hives in a Blackberry Plantation for Pollination
Features of blackberry pollination
Blackberries usually have white flowers with four petals. The stigma is surrounded by 50 to 100 anthers. The nectar in a blackberry flower is produced in the calyx at the base of the petals. Blackberry flowers begin to release nectar as soon as they open and continue to release nectar until the petals fall. Many varieties of blackberries have been created, each variety has a different degree of self-fertility. Therefore, farmers often place several different varieties of blackberries on the same plot to ensure cross-pollination.
It is important when planting blackberries to find out the characteristics of the variety regarding whether the variety in question needs cross-pollination. But the vast majority of blackberry varieties require additional pollination by bees, which transfer pollen to the stigma and thus improve the blackberry harvest. The stigmas are receptive during the first three days after the flowers open.
Someone can say, if the variety is self-fertile, then why do we need bees for pollination? Even a self-sterile variety, after pollination by honey bees, produces higher yields. Last but not least, pollination by bees produces higher quality fruits that are more marketable, the berries are beautiful and large. One of the experiments showed that in the case of blackberry pollination by bees, the same number of berries remained on the bushes as without pollination, but the number of rejected fruits decreased from 50% to 8%.
Calculations showed that the net additional profit for the producer, after paying the beekeeper to rent bees, from pollination amounted to $1,876 per hectare.
Honeybees willingly visit blackberries to collect pollen and nectar, which has a certain impact on the organization of pollination of blackberries by bees.
How many bees are needed to pollinate blackberries?
For commercial production, it is important to get the largest possible yield of high quality blackberries, so it is important for them to create a density of bees sufficient for good pollination of blackberries.
How many hives does it take to pollinate blackberries?
On plantations, as a rule, blackberries are grown on trellises with a distance between bushes of 1.5–2.0 m. The rows of blackberries are arranged in accordance with the care technology and the type of equipment used; as a rule, the rows are located at a distance of 2–3 m from each other. Which gives a density of 1430–2670 blackberry bushes per 1 hectare.
The average time to visit a blackberry flower is eight seconds, with honeybees being most active on blackberries between 10:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.
Many sources indicate that 2 hives per hectare of blackberries is enough to obtain sufficient pollination.
In different regions, due to climate, there may be some differences in the rate of visits to one flower and the period during which bees visit blackberries. For this reason, in Australia, recommended densities of bees pollinating blackberries range from 2 to 10 hives per hectare.
The number of hives needed to pollinate blackberries will be influenced by weather conditions, the presence of competing honey-bearing vegetation and other factors.
Features of bee pollination of blackberries
How to Place Hives in a Blackberry Plantation for Pollination
For blackberries to be pollinated by bees, the hive must be arranged in such a way that the bees fly along the rows, and not across the rows. The arrangement of hives for pollinating blackberries has many similarities with the arrangement of hives for pollinating grapes. If the hives are placed incorrectly, this will reduce the flight activity of the bees and, consequently, the degree of pollination, since the bees will tend to work along, rather than across, the rows of pollinated plants.
The hives should be placed at small intervals at the beginning of the rows, rather than collecting the entire apiary in one place at the edge of the field.
To pollinate blackberries, strong colonies with a lot of brood are needed.
Blackberries produce a lot of pollen, and in some regions they can be good honey plants, so it makes sense to install a pollen collector and collect some of the blackberry pollen that the bees carry to the hive; this will also allow you to control the bees’ attendance of blackberry flowers.
To increase the flight activity of bees, bee bread reserves can be removed from the hive.
Blackberries are good honey plants, and therefore no additional training is required for bees to visit blackberry flowers. However, in the presence of competing melliferous vegetation, it would be useful to give the bees a rejecting fertilizer, so The bees would focus on pollinating the blackberries.
When to Place Hives in a Blackberry Plantation for Pollination
Since blackberry flowers are usually very attractive to bees, hives should be placed on the plantation at the beginning of flowering. This period is also important because the amount of pollen in flowers is high at the beginning of flowering and during full flowering and decreases towards the end of flowering. Therefore, setting up hives with bees at the beginning of flowering promotes maximum pollen transfer and maximum harvest.
Thus, pollination by bees can significantly increase the yield of marketable blackberries.