While not a bee person myself I do get a lot of help from these critters with the fruit orchard. Although the saskatoon trees are self pollinating, there are a bazillion bees in there when flowering. I can't remember if the cherry trees are self pollinating as well but once again there are tons of bees all over them during flowering.

There is a guy that has a few hives just behind my property from time to time so I suspect the bees cone from there but some years he doesn't have any, yet there are still tons of bees around, gotta come from somewhere.

This summer the University used my orchard as a control to see if placing hives in an orchard would affect yields or the quality of the fruit. There had been some speculation that bee pollination increased the seediness of the fruit.

Interesting critters.

Lloyd

When you say that the fruit got 'seedier' what did you mean exactly? More actual seeds? Probably due to increased actual successful pollination. I get the same results with my cukes. I grow the self-pollinating type. If I cover the vines with net and allow no insect pollination, I get seedless cukes. Leaving the net off...I get some seeds due to pollination.
Kris