Bees and Organic Apple Orchardists

"Bees Can Be a Nuisance to Organic Apple Growers

As a beekeeper, I’m always interested in placing my bees in a location where they get an ample food supply. Earlier this year, when I was touring cherry orchards with a new cherry drying client, I noticed a bunch of beehives in a field. I asked him about it and was very surprised to learn that organic apple growers don’t like bees to be left behind past pollination contracts.

During pollination season, all apple growers rent beehives to ensure pollination of their trees. Non-organic growers don’t care how many successful flower pollinations there are. When the bees are gone and the fruit starts to grow, they spray a chemical that forces a good portion of the fruit to drop off the trees. This ensures that the fruit left behind gets more of the tree’s resources and grows well.

Organic farmers, however, can’t spray that chemical. As a result, they try to limit the number of apples on the trees by limiting the amount of time the bees are present. When a beekeeper removes bees from an orchard but keeps them in the area — perhaps a nearby field — the bees continue to pollinate the trees. As a result, there are too many apples on the organic trees and they need to be culled manually at a great expense to the grower.

So organic growers simply don’t want the bees around any longer than necessary."

I found that to be extremely interesting..  And I personally would like to know what is the chemical non-organic ie: Industrial Orchardists use to make the apples drop.