North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Road's End Farm <organic87@frontiernet.net>]

> Mark Angermayer wrote:
>
> <x-tad-smaller>It's a pretty big area to enclose, but I'm tired of the pest pressure.  However, if possible I'd like to make the hardware cloth big enough to allow the honey bees to pollinate the berries.  I'm thinking the Green June beetles are about the size of a queen bee, so my question is, does anyone know what is the size of the holes of a queen excluder? Do queen excluders have round holes, or are they square?  I'm thinking 3/8" hardware cloth would keep a queen out and let the workers pass through, but I'm not sure.</x-tad-smaller>
>  

Is it possible to put a honeybee hive inside the enclosure during bloom?

I think this is sometimes done for crops requiring insect pollination when cross-pollination is not desired because the seed of the particular variety is to be saved, but the area from which seed is to be saved is small enough to cover but large enough for the bees to be OK inside it for a couple of weeks.

If you don't keep bees yourself, a local beekeeper might be willing to do this for you, possibly in exchange for either cash or berries.

--Rivka
Finger Lakes NY; zone 5 mostly