The Pollinating Efficiency of Honey-Bee Visits to Apple Flowers

Abstract

Bees scrabbling for pollen set a greater percentage of the flowers they visit than bees collecting nectar. The pollinating efficiency of visits is much greater to self-compatible than to self-incompatible varieties; on the latter the efficiency decreases as distance from the source of compatible pollen increases. Calculations indicate that one colony of honey-bees probably provides enough foragers to pollinate sufficient flowers to give an economic set in an acre of apple orchard.