Beekeeping and the Apple Orchards
There are apple farms all over the country. Apple orchards are where the apples you buy in the store come from. Apples grown on farms are used to make apple sauce. Apple juice and apple cider drinkers enjoy the fruits that the hardworking farm owners grow. Apple pies couldn’t be made without apple farms. Without apple trees, the world would be a less happy place.
In the spring, when people drive by apple farms, they see neat rows of apple trees with delicate apple blossoms on their spreading branches. They can drive by the same garden in the summer and see the same trees with leaves that shine in the sun. In the fall, these same trees are full of juicy, crunchy apples. In the winter, the wide branches of the apple trees are covered with a layer of sparkling snow. When they stop to look at the beautiful trees, they notice that, unlike other types of farming, the only time they see anyone working in the trees is when they are full of apples and farmers are picking them. People walking by don’t have to think for long before they start to imagine how easy it would be to own a garden. When the chance to buy an apple farm comes along, these people can’t help but jump at the chance.
The truth is that having an apple orchard is about a lot more than just picking apples and making money.
People walking by might think that owning an apple orchard won’t be too hard, but in fact, it takes a lot of work to keep the orchard in good shape. The trees have to be cut. For the trees not to be eaten by insects, they have to be cleaned. Besides taking care of the trees, there are a lot of other general maintenance tasks that need to be done. There is also the job of cutting down old, useless trees and putting in new, young trees in their place.
The next thing to think about when you want to buy an apple farm is how big it is. Experts say that an apple farm needs to be at least ten acres big to make money. That’s just enough to stay even. In theory, a bigger orchard means that the owner will make more money, but it also means that the owner will have to buy more insecticide, rotate more trees, hire more workers, and spend more money on the tools needed to manage the orchard and harvest the apple crop.
Perhaps the biggest error beginners to the apple orchard business make is in the springtime when the apple trees are in bloom. For the trees to make fruit, the pollen from the flowers has to get to the tree’s ovaries. Even though the wind can help, honey bees are better at pollinating the flowers. Many new farm owners think there are enough bees in the wild to pollinate the acres of apple trees. These owners are making an assumption that could harm their yearly return. Owners who have been in business for a while know that they need to work with local beekeepers to make sure they get a good harvest. The farmers rent them the hives and the honey bees. The people who owned the hives put them in the trees. Pollination is helped by the extra bees.
