# New beekeeper from BC, Canada



## PerryBee (Dec 3, 2007)

Hi Judy

Beautiful part of the country, used to live in the lower mainland myself. For high bush? Check out a couple of the beekeeping clubs like the one in Surrey, lots of good people in those clubs more than willing to share their experience. Best of luck.

Perry


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## Scorpster (Jun 11, 2009)

Judy said:


> I live in the Pacific Northwest part of British Columbia. My husband and I are just starting out in beekeeping. One of my many questions regards the number of hives that we would require to pollinate 110 acres of blueberry plants? We plan to start in the spring of 2010.


Hi Judy, the recommendations I have seen from a large pollinator in our area was 1 hive per acre for first year berries, 2 per acre for 2nd year, and 3 per acre after that. Considering I just read blueberries went from 12000 acres to 17000 acres in the last 5 years here in the Valley, that's a whole lot of hives needed....so you ready for 330 hives this spring?


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## Judy (Aug 19, 2009)

*Re: Judy*

I am definitely not ready to manage 330 hives for the 110 acres of blueberries. Thank you for the responses I received and I will follow up with the bee club in Surrey.


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## iwombat (Feb 3, 2009)

"According to E. C. Martin (personal commun., 1973), there was a rather dramatic acceptance of the information on the value of bees to blueberries in Michigan following publication of papers by Martin (1966) and Dorr and Martin (1966). Within 3 years, growers of 9,000 acres of blueberries were using between 12,000 and 15,000 colonies of honey bees (Mich. Agr. Expt. Sta. 1970), and this activity was primarily responsible for that State being the leading producer of blueberries. He stated that two colonies per acre has become the accepted optimum for commercial growers, and some growers were convinced that higher numbers of colonies per acre were economical."


from:

"http://gears.tucson.ars.ag.gov/book/chap7/blue.html"


Also, from what I've been reading, it seems that blueberries aren't good at producing a complete food source for honeybees, but are better suited to the native bumble bees. That may be the reason for the high numbers of colonies required.


That being said, maybe it's time to take this discussion outside the welcome topic.


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