As Dave and I walked out to the orchard this morning to begin the annual pruning of the trees, a familiar sound stopped us in our tracks. The boisterous buzzing resonated from the towering tops of the Silver Maple trees that loom over our orchard. 
Now, that mysterious buzzing might have been unnerving to any one else but Dave and I knew where those bees came from. They were our neighbors honey bees and they were busy pollinating the buds of our giant Silver Maple trees.

Silver Maple Buds

Pollination is transfer of pollen from the male part of the flower to the female part of the flower.   For example, while gathering pollen from the flower of a Honey Crisp apple tree, the pollen gets stuck all over the Honeybees hairy body. That bee goes back to the hive and rubs up next to another bee who has just visited a Red Delicious apple tree. The different pollen's mix together and the bees take that pollen to the next tree they visit.  
Here are some crops that are pollinated by bees:
Isn't cross pollination magical?        

                        
                                                   
We were delighted when Mike and Cassie shared with us that they were exploring the world of bee keeping.  At our farm we have 17 apple trees, 2 pear trees, 2 cherry and a new peach tree. All of these trees start with fragrant flowers in the spring.  Without the pollination help of bees, the flowers would bloom and then wither and drop without ever having a chance to become an apple or pear or a cherry or a peach.
Unfortunately, honey bees get a bad rap. People tend to lump them in with all the other flying 'bee like' insects such as wasps, bald faced hornets, yellow jackets and mud daubers. 

Honeybees have three jobs.  The worker bee, the drone and the queen bee. Unlike wasps, Honeybees build hives of wax and only swarm when they are reproducing. Eventually, the queen bees leave their hive with some bees but leave others behind to choose a new queen. The new queen is fed a special diet by the workers which will make her fertile. The other females are fed diets that cause them to become sterile. Worker bees are sterile females. Their heads are black and their bodies are golden brown and black with patches of orange. There are yellow bands on their abdomens and the wings are clear. Drones are males without stingers who eventually die. 


Yellow jackets are sometimes mistakenly called "bees" because they are similar in size and appearance and both sting, but yellow jackets are actually wasps.
Wasps are considered pests. Wasps seem to become really annoying and at some times dangerous, from August until it gets cold. 
Have you ever had a wasp try to get in your soda cup or sneak a taste of your food? 
We sell apples, pears and apple cider at our small town farmers market during the summer and wasps get very annoying during apple/pear season. They often times sit themselves between the pieces of fruit and sting when someone unknowingly reaches in for the best looking apple in the basket. People are most often get stung in late summer because wasp colonies stop breeding new workers.  The existing workers search for sugary foods and are more likely to come into contact with humans. Wasp nests are made ANYWHERE and in ANYTHING. My worse encounter with wasps came last summer when I stupidly grabbed a pot from out of my greenhouse without looking. The lip of the pot had an active nest and boy were they mad! Ouch!!!!

 Stings are painful rather than dangerous, but in rare cases people may suffer life-threatening anaphylactic shock. 

Yellow jackets, especially the females, are extremely aggressive and will sting repeatedly. Unlike honeybees, their stingers are not barbed and stay attached to their abdomens despite repeated use. Their venom is more potent than honey bee venom and their stings are very painful. DO NOT swing at yellow jackets as they are easily provoked.

Bumblebees have black heads with dark wings. A black band runs across the thorax and the abdomen is all yellow with black on the very tip. Bumblebees are large. They have workers, drones and a queen. In the winter, all Bumblebees die except for the queen.
I can remember unknowingly stepping on bumble bees with my bare feet when I was young. They would be buzzing in and around the clover in the grass minding their own business and along I would come with my bare feet and step right on them. Ouch!



Bald Faced Hornets are related to Yellow Jackets. These hornets are black and white. They prey on flies and yellow jackets. Bald Faced Hornets are extremely aggressive and will sting repeatedly. Their football shaped hives are made of gray paper with a hole on the bottom. They build their nests in trees. 






Mud Daubers are wasps that build their nests with mud. Organ-pipe mud daubers build their very distinctive and elegant tubes on vertical or horizontal faces of walls, cliffs, bridges, overhangs and shelter caves or other structures.


  Mud daubers are not normally aggressive, but can become belligerent when threatened. Stings are uncommon.

Treatment for minor reactions

1. Remove the stinger as soon as you can, as it takes only seconds for all of the venom to enter your body. Get the stinger out any way you can, such as with your fingernails or a tweezer.
2. Wash the sting area with soap and water.
3. Apply cold compresses or ice to relieve pain and ease swelling.

I will leave you with this amazing video that I took when my neighbors bees were swarming. As you will see, I stood in the middle of the swarm but no harm came to me. It was an incredible experience for me.

Bees swarming