It's Blossom Season!

Have you ever wondered how the little pink flowers turn into juicy apples, ready to be turned into delicious cider? Well, the answer is pollination!

Many people don’t know the details as to how apples grow, but the bottom line is without bees and pollination apple trees would never be able to produce the apples we need to create our cider!

The pollination process works when honeybees, mason bees, and bumblebees, (the main pollinators of apples), go from blossom to blossom collecting nectar and moving it from male parts of the blossom flower (stamens) to other flowers and their female parts (pistils). This then causes the apple to begin to grow.

As bees are an essential part of the growth of apples, It is common practice for orchard owners/apple producers to work with a beekeeper to make sure that they have a steady flow of bees ready to pollinate in the spring. We are lucky enough to have hives situated by the orchards. The hives belong to the Stevens Family who are local small scale British beekeepers, and they collect the honey and pack it into jars for consumption.

In conclusion, without bees pollinating to produce apples, we may not have enough of a harvest to produce our ciders, which is incredible knowing how something so small could contribute to something so big!