bees not hungry

[Finsky]

about Blueberries.  I know all about them.

That is interesting. ... I have had 5 bushes two years and I succeeded so well that now I have 20 bushes in my cottage garden.
In my bushes I saw only bumble bees.  I read American cultivation advices from internet.
We have in nature billberry Vaccinium myrtillus and they are a lot. But it is sensitive to frost and dry wethers. In nature we have no blueberries.

Natural billberry are really abundant but in blooming time hives are so weak that they are not able to forage surplus. I suppose too that water content of bilberry nectar is very high.

Last summer frost burned all billberry flowers but garden bluberries had no violation. Blueberry blooms about a month later than billberry.
 

[Trot]

Cindy,

those farmers place sawdust around the bushes, to give them acid.  I am a cabinet maker, by trade and of course I build all my beekeeping stuff. Therefore I have plenty of sawdust, which is not recommended in your average compost pile.  I store it in bags and boxes and I take it to my summer home, which is 124 km south of Sudbury and where my bees are. There I spread saw dust under the cedar plants that I had planted along one side of the driveway.

No, in Sudbury we do not need to add acidity to our plants, cause soil is too acidic allready. Almost every year, City of Sudbury hires a bunch of students and they spread, tones and tones of lime, in our region, to de-acidify the soil.
What was ones coined as "Moon scape," (astronauts from NASA did actually train here for their first moonwalk) now we already have lush vegetation and "moonscape" has all but disappeared...

I usually leave pine needles under the pines, cause they recycle that as nutrient. Pines too need acidic soil.

Mississauga ?  That is practically Toronto.  Sudbury boasts with most sunny days in eastern Canada, but we are a lot colder than Mississauga - by far. What they grow in their open gardens we must grow behind the glass. Well, most of it anyway...
I would say that temp in Mississauga doesn't often dip below zero?  Here is nothing unusual to have minus 30 - for days on end.

I know what you mean about picking blueberries?  They are a bit too close to the ground for my liking also...

Regards,
Trot

[Finsky]

Blueberry needs pH 4,5 and it is very normal in Finnish pruce forest.

[Cindi]

Natural billberry are really abundant but in blooming time hives are so weak that they are not able to forage surplus. I suppose too that water content of bilberry nectar is very high.Last summer frost burned all billberry flowers but garden bluberries had no violation. Blueberry blooms about a month later than billberry.
 

I have heard of bilberries, I am unsure if we grow them here, but I heard they are very very good, make beautiful jellies and jams.  I am going on the net to read about the bilberry.  Great day.  Cindi

[Finsky]

If summer is good it is able to pick billberries 10 pouds per hour  (= 3 US gallon)  with this machine.

And then I clean berries in the 5 feet groove made from queen excluders.

[Cindi]

Wow, Finksy, what an interesting tool for the bilberry harvest.  I have not seen one like that around here.  Maybe could be imported to Canada?  LOL. 

I did a little reading on Bilberry.  It is grown here, but I have not seen it.  It is in the family of the blueberry and huckleberry, to make things short.

We grow the red huckleberry wild in our forests.  It is very hard to pick these little tiny berries, but are very very good to eat and make pies, jams, jellies, etc.  I think that your tool for bilberry harvest would work very magificently for the huckleberry harvest.  It is in early August when this species is ready to harvest (if the bears don't get them first).  They usually grow on rotten old stumps, pretty much the only place they LIKE to grow.  Great day.  Cindi

[Finsky]

Maybe could be imported to Canada?  LOL. 

I saw from internet that Swedish model is sold in Alaska.