This is our red delicious appletree. Today I noticed a lot of humming and buzzing around the blossoms. We have no honey bees in our community. So I thought I would only be seeing bumblebees. To my great surprise, there were other insects, some looked like wild bees and others I have not encountered before. Perhaps some of you insect experts like my blogging friend Gerhard in Germany could figure out and report back their names. Enjoy.
All of a sudden, it’s apple blossom time in the Arrow Lakes region. In our mini-orchard, we have three varieties of apple trees: the Grafenstein, the Red Delicious and the Crab Apple. The Grafenstein apple tree blossoming first is also earliest to produce very delicious and juicy fruit. Unfortunately, they need to be consumed rather quickly, because they quickly become mealy and lose their crispiness. On the other hand, the Red Delicious produces somewhat harder apples but has the definite advantage of being excellent keepers. Just today my wife made the last apple cake with the very last batch of the crop. The crab apple produces very small fruit not suitable for eating, but its red flowers are truly magnificent.
By the way, on last week’s post, I must have insulted the poor little azalea bush by claiming that it is going to be last to bloom. Guess what, right behind the magnolia tree, it has taken second place in the rank order of my budding studies.
The Peter and Gertrud Klopp Family 