# Watermelon Pollination?? Affects on bees?



## gtwarren1966 (Jul 7, 2015)

Sanguinetti351 said:


> Hello everyone, I have an offer to pollinate some watermelons this year in June and July. I haven't took bees to watermelons before and I was was wondering if any of you had and how your bees did during and after you took them out of pollination. Im worried because when I told someone I was taking them they said I'm basically asking to kill my bees in watermelon pollination. Just hoping someone out there can give me some more insight on pollinating this specific crop. Thank you.


I guess it would depend on the pesticide spray schedule of the patch. My bees work my melon patch all summer long with no ill effects


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## DerTiefster (Oct 27, 2016)

Is part of this question, "What effect does monoculture foraging have on bees when the monoculture is watermelon?" That seems to be different from spray side-effects. I _believe_ I have read that some plants are not especially nutritious for bees. I know _nothing_ about this, by the way. I'm just interested in learning.


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## babybee (Mar 23, 2012)

I don't pollinate watermelons, but I talk to guys that do. And as far as I can tell is it really comes down to what else is in the surrounding areas. Some guys bring supers for a cotton honey flow while in melons. On the other hand if there isn't much else going on besides the melons, it doesn't sound like it's worth doing. One guy I know often loses 50 percent of his bees doing melons. To me that's not sustainable. Either way good luck


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

I dropped some bees into watermelons in 2004 to help out a guy I grew up with. The location was 20 acres of melons with a nearby pond and an ideal location to place hives of bees. I put 5 colonies near the middle of the 20 acres. The watermelons were planted in early June for a late crop. There was abundant forage near that area so my bees pollinated the watermelons and then collected a good fall crop of honey from goldenrod and aster. I left them in place until the next spring.

What did I learn? Watermelons are not a good source of nectar. The bees barely made a living while they were in bloom. On the positive side, nothing else was blooming at the time so having the watermelons to forage on was a net gain for the bees. Five colonies was not enough for 20 acres of watermelons. Ten would probably have worked better and 20 would have been best. The way to tell is to count the percentage of large fully developed watermelons vs the number that are under size or strongly tapered shape. Good pollination plus good growing conditions results in large attractive melons. He made a good crop of melons which I attribute in part to a healthy number of solitary bees that also foraged on the flowers.

If the watermelons were the only forage available, I would limit time in the fields to max 6 weeks. Melons pollinated after that will not reach mature size before harvest. The optimum time to drop bees into the field is when the plants have an average of 3 flowers showing on the longest runner. The first 1 or 2 flowers will be male. Flowers 3 to 9 will almost always include at least 2 female flowers that can set a melon. This optimum time will vary depending on the genetics of the watermelons. Most hybrid varieties will be ready about 5 weeks after planting. Older open pollinated watermelons vary in some cases taking 2 months or more to be ready to set fruit.


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## m0dem (May 14, 2016)

May have already seen it, but...
http://www.beesource.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-300019.html


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## Calibeekeeper (Mar 31, 2014)

Get ready for your bees to be sprayed l. I'm assuming your going to put them on the west side in ca.


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## Sanguinetti351 (May 30, 2016)

Calibeekeeper said:


> Get ready for your bees to be sprayed l. I'm assuming your going to put them on the west side in ca.


 Yes thats were the contract was for! Its not sounding very promising for me so far. I greatly appreciate all the replies I received from you all. Im thinking now I will go check out the area more thoroughly and see whats surrounding the watermelons. After that I'll talk to the grower about spraying and make my decision. Thank you all again!


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## Skinner Apiaries (Sep 1, 2009)

As a melon grower, and a beekeeper, and a sprayer and sprayee, I would say all that talk about you'll get sprayed is relative to where and who you dealing with. People worried about what will happen to the bees, what? Are you placing 400 in one place? I stuck yards of 50 here at home thinking this is way too many and they're honey bound. But to the point, every farmer has liability, if he has GAP + Fisma and is selling his own product, 5 million minimum liability to deal with the chains, if he's kicking along 10 acres without insurance it's not worth the trouble anyway. So technically if he sprays you, you come away probably with money for bees plus a hundred or whatever you ask for in your pocket. Farmers don't have deep pockets my way, and they all lie about it etc, but every single one of them has insurance, how do I know? They keep paying for cotton they kill with drift.


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