"micky" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 5 May 2014 02:00:45 -0400, "Robert Green"
wrote:

"micky" wrote in message
stuff snipped here and there

My new cherry tree NW of Baltimore didn't seem to have many bugs
fertilizing it. Just 4 when I looked, two honey bees and two other
things about half as big and all black.

If there isn't much fruit, how do I fertilize the flowers myself next
year? A brush? A toothbrush?

Jeez Micky, could you put any more "straight lines" in a single post? (-

"Mommy, what's that man doing to the tree?" EEEWWWW!

"Is that how you make cherries and cream?"

Etc.

I don't think about such things, but if I had, I'd have counted on the
adults here not to spend time on such things.

Relax, Micky. Adults? Here in AHR? Are you feeding me straight lines
again?

It was a homage to a former English professor of mine, James Dickey. Some
will remember him as the author who penned "Deliverance" but he also wrote
about how farmboys will put their organs of generation in anything they can:

The Sheep Boy

Farm boys wild to couple
With anything with soft-wooded trees
With mounds of earth. . . .

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/guide/179991

It's really a remarkable poem and 100% Dickey who was by all means larger
than life. He wrote another interesting poem calling "Falling" based on an
actual event. He had heard a stewardess had fallen out of a plane and wrote
about what she might have been thinking on the long, long way down to her
death (she undresses - which is a far more common reaction to
hyper-stressful situations than people might think - a doctor friend says
it's because when people have serious breathing troubles they feel that
their clothes, particularly shirts, jackets, etc are too tight and keeping
them from breathing - who knows for sure?)

If all the flowers lead to cherries, I'll have to find those bees and
give them a medal. I'm afraid though that if I pin medals on their
chests, I'll kill them. Maybe a ribbon around their neck.

I think that entomologists tag them with a little plastic numbered plaques
and a dab of crazy glue. They might object to any award, though. (-:

Glad I could help. Be sure to let us know if it worked. I suspect from
what I've read you'll still have cherries but not nearly as many as you
might with a health population of bees. FWIW, I was outside working and I
saw no shortage of big fat bumblebees working over the Roses of Charon. So
it's not only the honeybees out there facilitating fruit tree sex. Soon,
you too will be artificial inseminating cherries. Reminds me of an Ag Fair
I once covered where this lovely young blonde that looked a lot like Tiger
Wood's ex donned this super long plastic glove that looked like a clear
opera glove, slicked it with goo and just rammed it right up a cow's rump.
What was even more amazing was that the cow was so used to it, it didn't
even twitch.

As for those poor honeybees - they get trucked all over the country, exposed
to more and different threats than they ever would as a fixed colony.
That's why I really suspect neonictinoids as the culprit. The EU ban will
precede ours so if their colonies recover and ours are still in collapse
we'll have our smoking gun.

Be thankful bee medical research isn't done like human research. The dead
bees are scooped up, blended into a puree and the centrifuged out to find
out what should be there, what's not, etc.

"Grandpa just died and they're putting him in the NIH cement mixer to see
what was wrong with him."

--
Bobby G.