# Do honeybees pollinate grape vines?



## mswaf100

There are a few vineyards starting to pop up in my area, are these potential customers for pollination?


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## hpm08161947

Grapevines are pollinated by the wind/gravity. Don't need the bees.


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## Jonathan Hofer

We've got a small vineyard on the place, and I have seen bees work the grape flowers. I very much doubt that the grapes are a significant nectar source. 

In reply to the previous post: I realize that hermaphroditic flowers have the ability to self pollinate by gravity, but I think that when cross-pollination between male and female plants is desired, insects have to do the work.


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## hpm08161947

Since the original question is about a vineyards potential as a pollination client, I would doubt it as most commercial vineyards wind up dropping half or more of their fruit. I know I do. So overproduction is often more of a problem than underproduction. Not all grapevines are hermaphroditic - some varieties of muscadines for example - the wind takes care of them. The vineyard is full of airborne pollin at fruit set time of the year.


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## Bens-Bees

Vineyards and bees go great together... well, sort of... by that I mean vineyards exist to the extent that they do mainly because of wines and spirits, and honey is also a great ingredient to make spirits (mead) from.

But the bees need a nectar flow crop to make honey for mead making.


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## Radical Bee

Table grapes are sized primarily by pruning, thinning, or, as in the case of Thompson Seedless, by a combination of that and gibarellic acid--which i probably mispelled.

Wine grapes are not grown for size, at least that is what they say, so additional genetic material is not a goal.

As a former grape grower i doubt if either the bees or the beekeeper can make a living off grape vineyards.


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## Beethinking

I kept 10 Warre hives at 3 different wineries this season here in Oregon's wine country and they did quite poorly. I chose small, organic wineries with as many cover crops and other nectar sources as possible, yet it seems clear that there just isn't enough diversity in most wine areas compared to suburban and urban areas where my hives exploded. 

I had at least 12 wineries asking me to place the hives on their property -- obviously not for the pollination of their grapes -- because they wanted to benefit the other flowers in their area as well as benefit the honey bees that they know are struggling. 

Matt


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## BigDru

I have a friend who manages several vineyards. Bees will not pollinate grapes. He did say the certain types of grapes will produce nector that will attract bees. The greatest draw to bees are the supplenntal plants in the vineyard.


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