growing watermelons

[wlf89]

HOW? i have been trying to for the last 10 years.
i have any where from 50-100 hills and can not get 20 good melons
out of them. vines are always pretty and healthy and full of blooms, but i reckon they all fall off and the little melons rot.

i dont think they are enough honey bees around any more to pollinate any thing around here.

 

[Beekeeper]

HOW? i have been trying to for the last 10 years.
i have any where from 50-100 hills and can not get 20 good melons
out of them. vines are always pretty and healthy and full of blooms, but i reckon they all fall off and the little melons rot.

i dont think they are enough honey bees around any more to pollinate any thing around here.

I think you may be correct. I put 6 colonies of bees in a farmers mellon patch and he had some good looking mellons. Contact a beekeeper in your area and see if they would be interested in placing a colonie or two in your mellon patch.

 

[wlf89]

i would like to have a few bee hives around the gardens and fruit trees.

 

[catman529]

I love bees and would love to keep some myself one day. Last year I caught a swarm in a box with my bare hands and a little smoke and pruners to cut off the limb they were swarming on but they eventually moved on and hopefully set up a new hive somewhere. I'd love to get some boxes and raise them.

Haven't grown watermelons but the guy next to me in the community garden grows nice ones, I just grew cantaloupe which was delicious and will be growing it again.

You can hand-pollinate if you want but 50+ hills seems like too much to hand-pollinate. good luck finding some bees or something.

 

[Outdoor Lady]

We grow some good tasting mush mellons but our watermellons are another story.

Yes, WE need bees. I dont like getting stung, but I see less and less every year.

 

[Wobblyshot1]

Yea....I remember when I was a kid running barefoot through a patch of your common white Dutch clover was a sure recipe for a sting.

Now, this coming summer, watch those patches of clover and see how many honey bees you can count.

 

[WTM]

Yea....I remember when I was a kid running barefoot through a patch of your common white Dutch clover was a sure recipe for a sting.

Now, this coming summer, watch those patches of clover and see how many honey bees you can count.

with mite resistance to treatment and CCD we will see less and less. 90% of wild honeybee populations were wiped out a few years ago. CCD really scares me as there is no concrete evidence as to what causes it. the USDA doesnt seem to be worried about it, they say there are other pollinators as honeybees are not native to the Americas anyways.