Here are 12 of the 24 bee hives we have in the orchard for Kiwifruit pollination. It's all over and the bees will go home probably Tuesday night. It has been ideal conditions. Most of the bees are now visiting other plants like this lace cap hydrangea.
The avocados have been flowering longer but that is all over now too so their 2 hives can go as well.
You can see how tiny the avo flowers are compared with the bee at the bottom of the photo. About 1 fruit set for every 1500 flowers with them. The kiwifruit one fruit set for every flower - so quite different!
As well as 2 normal( honey ) bee hives we have bought 2 Bumble bee boxes for the avos. Bumbles work longer hours and in all conditions. Far less in a box than bees in a bee hive though.
R went and transported one of the bumble bee boxes home and placed it in the top vege garden. Here he has opened the door ( like a cat flap for transporting them ) . The bumble bee is at the doorway. 2 are visible.
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Remember in October I talked about the "Little Garden," free plants that New World Supermarket were giving away with every $40 spent.
Here is a rundown on the success I had with the various plants.
Bok Choy is almost all eaten they did fantastically.( I never grew that before )
Sunflowers are almost ready to flower.
Purple Tansy ( I never grew that before ) are also ready to flower. Really hard to see against the green background but they have fern like leaves an hairy buds.
Sweet peas are climbing well in their pot by the back door.
Other things that grew were sweet corn; watermelon ( now destroyed - something dug them out! ) ; nasturtiums; yellow beans; cucumber; thyme; sweet corn; coriander; kale , butternuts and red onion.
The lettuce never germinated. The beetroot and silver beet rotted off at about 1 " high.
All in all worth doing.
I wonder how your are doing down the South Manxgirl?
Sounds like life in the orchard is very busy. Bumble bees aremy favourite of the bees. It is amazing only 1 avocado polinates for all those flowers. Nature is astounding.
ReplyDeletehope the bees all do a great job.......they sure are essential for plants to produce.........interesting you get different bees for different jobs.............
ReplyDeleteit is so lovely to sunshine and growing plants xx AND super fun to see the bees .. they are sadly on the decline here x
ReplyDeleteI tried for the first time growing sweet peas in a pot this year. It wasn't a success. Maybe I didn't feed them enough... anyway, I won't be doing that again. They flowered, but not nearly as prolifically as the ones in the ground. I wonder if yours will be better?
ReplyDeleteJust doing some catch up blog reading. My little garden was a bit hit and miss.
ReplyDeleteLettuce, kale, silverbeet, spinach and courgette were all hits, along with the beans. My red onion are tiny but good. The melon was a miss, it failed down here. I didn't grow any flowers, except nasturtiums as a food crop. Yum. My cabbage were tiny, but edible. Butternuts have taken over the drive as well as the garden, though I did plant extra. Oh! And I have twi tiny cucumbers trying to ripen. LOL. Loving this grow your own thing.