The foraging behaviour of honeybees in an orchard of dwarf apple trees

Individual bees tend to be constant to the type of food they are collecting from apple flowers, but most will alter their behaviour. This adaptability probably mostly accounts for changes in the ratio of nectar-gatherers to pollen-gatherers in orchards.

Flowers of James Grieve and Cox’s Orange Pippin are equally attractive and bees readily change from one variety to the other ; flowers of Bramley’s Seedling are less attractive.

During one foraging trip most bees probably visit the flowers along about 10 ft. only of a continuous row, and relatively few change from one row to another. To increase bee pollination, pollinizer trees should be at intervals of not more than 10 ft. in the same rows as trees of the main variety. RESP-5038