Beehives are generally placed in commercial apple orchards as the king flowers open. If hives are brought in before this time, bees may forage flowers of other broad-leaved plants instead of the apple blossoms. For this reason, dandelion flowers should be removed by mowing or by herbicide treatment before hives are placed in the orchard. Two hives per acre are used in high- density orchards where dwarf apple trees are planted. Extra strong colonies of as many as 50,000 bees have been effective in pollinating four acres of semidwarf trees under ideal climatic conditions.
Most pear varieties are self-unfruitful.
However, nearly all pears are suitable pollinizers for other varieties that bloom at the same time. One exception is Seckel, which is not a good pollinizer for Bartlett. Pear flowers produce only a small amount of nectar, which is low in sugar. For this reason, more pollinizers and bees are needed for pears than for any other tree fruit. However, the J.H. Hale peach is not self-fruitful but can be pollinated by almost any other peach variety with a synchronous bloom period except Elberta.