Broadback wrote:

All my fruit trees have abundant blossom this year, great, thought I.
However I was down by an apple tree this morning, warm, sunny little
wind. The abundant blossom was fully open, but now sight nor sound of
bees, would not it have been normal for the bees to be bust setting my
apples?

I'm experiencing the same thing and it is worrying. I know so little
about these things when it comes down to it. It seems to me that when
the flowers first open the stamens are a creamy yellow and when they've
been sufficiently visited by pollinators they turn orange/brown. On that
basis it looks as though my trees *are* being visited, but slowly.
There's one early apple (George Cave) which seems not to have set any
fruit at all but I have hopes for some of the others.

Do you live in a rural area or in town? Where I am in SW Wales there are
still a fair amount of wild bees and other flying creatures. It does
seem, though, that bees tend to stick to certain plants and ignore
others. My gooseberries had loads of bees around them and so does a
cotoneaster right now, but only one or two around the apples. It says
something when in an area like mine, where there is ample habitat,
bio-diversity, no pesticide use or monoculture, the honey bee is
nonetheless in crisis. Of course, the government has cut the funding for
research and apiary management, just in time.

brian mitchell