You can be sure of a fruit crop even if you have only one tree.
A few years ago, one of my friends asked me to bring some of my bees over to his home garden to pollinate his cherries.
He has only one sweet cherry tree—the excellent Bing variety. The tree is as tall as his two-story house and is probably between 15 and 20 years old.
During lucky years, he gets as much as a five-pound pail of fruit from the entire tree. But, unfortunately, most years, he gets much less than that.
My friend thought bees would remedy the situation, and I agreed with him, for lie claimed he never saw as much as a single honey bee around the tree while it was blossoming.
Since there are about a dozen sweet cherry trees within a block of his home, I took it for granted that there would be pollinators among them.
Job Of The Bees
My bees would get on the job, and a huge crop would result if conditions were normal for rain or frost could interfere.
Well, even with the bees, he got his usual small crop, and there hadn’t been any rain or frost in blossom time.
After examining the other trees in the neighborhood during harvesting time, I found that none had any fruit to amount to anything.
Best Varieties Of Sweet Cherries
The neighbors had all bought the best varieties of sweet cherries—Bings, Lamberts, and Royal Annes —and there wasn’t a pollinator in the bunch.
These are all mature trees, and their owners have been wondering why they are not getting any fruit year after year.
Snowy Branches
Even as a young child, I liked flowers and often admired the cherries’ snowy branches when in full bloom.
I knew that later there should have been a cherry for every flower, but there wasn’t. So often, there wouldn’t be a cherry for every hundred blossoms.
No one seemed to know why. Unfortunately, there are many reasons why fruit trees do not bear good crops.
Difficulties Of The Cherries
Among the cherries, some of the difficulties are the following:
- Disease
- Old age
- Impoverished soil
- Lack of cultivation
- Drought
But the usual reasons are a lack of pollinators and a shortage of honey bees, although sour cherries are self-fertile.
Cross-Pollinated With Other Varieties
Most sweet cherries are not and have to be cross-pollinated with other varieties. Just any kind won’t do.
A Lambert won’t fertilize a Royal Anne, and a Royal Anne won’t help a Bing. The Black Republican is an excellent pollinator for all three.
Choosing Right Pollinators For Sweet Cherries
Whatever varieties of sweet cherries you may have —and these differ in different parts of our country—make sure you have the right pollinators.
If you don’t know which ones to choose, any reliable horticulturists will be glad to advise you.
In 1946 I grafted some Black Republican scions on my friend’s tree; in 1947, I budded on some more.
But, naturally enough, he wanted cherries that year, so he went out to a nursery and brought back an armload of Black Republican branches in full bloom.
He placed the branches in a couple of buckets of water and hung them up in the tree.
Unfortunately, he made the mistake of getting blossoms that were already open and had been for some time.
The bees didn’t touch them because there is no nectar in old blossoms ‘and they won’t waste time going around smelling them as people do.
Consequently, despite the presence of my bees, he got no more cherries that year than he had before.
This year the grafts and buds I put in are bearing well. With my bees’ help, these ought to provide him with more cherries than he knows what to do with.
Black Republican Tree
He is considering buying a Black Republican tree to present to a neighbor for planting, as there is no room for another tree in his yard.
But this drastic step isn’t necessary. Only a few small limbs of a pollinator grafted on his tree will do the trick very nicely.
Another Friend’s Request
Another of my friends came to see me one day about his half-acre of cherry trees. He wanted me to bring some of my beehives and put them right under the trees.
I told him that my bees were within a quarter of a mile from his place, and while the distance was farther than it should have been for the season when the trees are in blossom, the bees would fly that far, so he should get a fairly good crop.
There are usually a few warm days when the bees are sure to fly much farther than that in search of nectar.
We walked over to his home and looked at the Royal Annes trees. I judged them to be about 40 years old because they are very large.
No More Cherry Trees In The Vicinity
There are no other cherry trees in the vicinity at all. But, for many years, there have been plenty of domestic and wild bees.
I explained that he didn’t need more bees but some pollinators. So I offered to bud some scions of one on a few trees for him.
I knew that was what was needed. That, or the addition of a good Black Republican cherry tree!
When I was a youngster, the boys in the neighborhood often raided the local fruit trees. The owners didn’t care very much as long as we didn’t damage the trees.
Black Republican Cherry
We had the good ones spotted. The only one we left alone was a large Black Republican cherry. It always had good crops.
Although we didn’t know it (and wouldn’t have cared if we did), this tree was responsible for the satisfactory crops on all the other nearby cherries, thus ensuring us our illicit feasts.
This variety is a very firm, medium-to-small-size cherry with a fairly good but not excellent flavor.
Black Tartarian Pollinator
It is rarely planted for its fruit, now that we have much better varieties, but you must have it, or one of the other pollinators, like Black Tartarian or Windsor, if you want fruit on your other trees.
Use plenty of pollinators and bees, and Mother Nature will smile upon you. You might even have to put props under the branches!
44659 by Leonard Wiley