Pollen Flow

As I have mentioned before, we have been on a steep learning curve with Strawberries since the Fall. We are still making observations and course correcting in real time. It's both fun and challenging. One thing I hadn't considered before mid-season was whether we had enough natural pollinators. Around mid-season, I noticed some of the berries were only partially pollinated. The telltale sign is misshapen berries, specifically those with pinched tips, called "cat-faced" berries. When I discovered this phenomenon and put the pieces together, I hypothesized that we, in fact, do not have enough natural pollinators. We can't change the past, but we can affect the future. I reached out to a beekeeper friend of mine. He had some young hives he split this spring and was willing to sell. We met that Saturday morning and loaded up 4 hives of bees. It was early and cool, so the bees seemed to travel well. Later that day, they were active around the hive, and by the following day, I snapped these pictures of them hauling in pollen. I plan to put on my bee veil and take a peek inside the hives today to see how they are doing, but from the outside, they look happy. It takes around 20-30 days for a strawberry bloom to become a ripe fruit, so in a couple of weeks, I should be able to test the pollenator hypotheses. Notice: The pollen on the rear legs of the bees as they enter the hive. I have no way to tell whether this is strawberry pollen, but surely some of it is. In fact, you can see the different colors of pollen on each bee, indicating that they are feeding on a diverse mixture of flora.