Late April and May find the pollinators in Michigan. The contractors finish up the season in North Dakota or Minnesota where there are acres of clover plants to yield honey. The contractors don't even have to take the hives off the truck, he said. They drive the truck right into the orchard. The bees will fly as far as seven miles, so there's no need to put them right next to the trees they're going to be pollinating.
Bees always come back to their home.
That's part of the secret of keeping bees. The contractors wait until the bees come back to their hives at night and put nets over them to keep them from flying away when they pause at truck stops where the bright lights would simulate dawn. That light would start the bees flying around again. Hoosiers used to rely on the natural bee population in the woods, but growers could suddenly find themselves with almost no apples or with deformed apples because the apple is in the rose family and has five little carpels. All five have to be fertilized.