This is eye-opening. I know honey bees aren't native but I never connected that they are a symptom of monoculture and habitat destruction.

@orionsghost9511

4 жыл бұрын

Hmm, I don't know that this is true, merely upon his presentation and singular case.

@80Chris100

4 жыл бұрын

@@orionsghost9511 Good point, but seems convincing enough to look for whether or not it occurs elsewhere.

@mobeeagro

2 жыл бұрын

how about wild honey bee..

@iananderson8363

2 жыл бұрын

They aren’t good for fruit trees, that’s the takeaway.

I couldn't agree more! When people say "Save the Bees", it actually meant, save the NATIVE Bees that are so essential! These Native Bees are specialists and sometimes are the only type of bee that can pollinate particular plants.

@d.shermandesantos3570

Жыл бұрын

I'm glad someone is pointing this out. I used to keep bees - no more. They compete with the native bees and some of our native bees are endangered. I'm going to turn my bee hives into end tables.

@beetickler6418

4 ай бұрын

I have both and they are all doing well. The honeybees don't stay around my yard; they go to where the farmed crops grow.

In Croatia we have around 270 species of bee, just under 250 of which are solitary bees. These bees can be amazingly effective pollinators and as the name suggests tend not to live in colonies like bumblebees and honey bees. Solitary bees in Croatia are highly diverse, therefore so are their nesting habits. The majority of species nest in the ground, excavating their own nest. The female builds the nest by herself. She chooses a suitable piece of ground in which to nest and uses her body to dig out a nesting chamber in the ground. She adds pollen to the chamber, which is often moistened with nectar, and lays an egg. She then seals off that section of the nest before moving onto the next chamber. Although most solitary bees nest solitarily, in suitable nest sites you often find aggregations of nests. There are also a number of species in Croatia that nest in the ground but create turrets over their nests, these are often very distinctive. All the best, Zeljko Serdar. 🐝🍎🐝🍐🐝

@StefanSobkowiak

6 жыл бұрын

FANTASTIC great info Zeljko.

@emiliaatanassova6648

4 жыл бұрын

Hello from Sofia/Bulgaria. Great info indeed. Hvala lepo, Zeljko.

@minibuns5397

3 жыл бұрын

In America we have over 5,000 native bees!!!

3 жыл бұрын

According to United States Department of Agriculture in the United States, there are over 4,000 species of native bees. This is not about competing over who has more. However, native bees face a paradox: while they are important for agricultural activity, they are threatened by agriculture itself. Our food production system is the main reason why bees are disappearing. Plant suppression affects their natural habitat. In addition, uniform landscapes do not provide the diverse diet that insects need. To make matters worse, there is abusive use of pesticides. When pesticides do not kill, they may decrease the longevity of bees, hamper their ability to return to the hive, interrupt the laying of eggs by the queen, prevent communication, disrupt work organization and division, and paralyze wings and legs, among other harmful effects that end up weakening or even decimating the hive.

@minibuns5397

3 жыл бұрын

@ No you are wrong, the Stingless bee Meliponi is not native to North America. It too must be exterminated on non-native lands! You are also wrong on what is killing bees! The NUMBER ONE thing that is killing bees is HABITAT LOSS. Have a good day !

I am a beekeeper, but yet I have an environment so diverse, that usually when I watch a Plum tree not 10 meters away from the beehives, I still have more wild bees and bumblebees visible on the blossoms, than honey bees. To the point where they really have to fight for survival, I've had a whole family of bees decimated by one or two hornets on a number of times already

@waldemarkirszniok298

Жыл бұрын

Another thing to keep in mind, Honey bees are really picky. I mean there are blossoms that of course only the bumblebees can reach because the flowers are long and narrow, like comfrey flowers, but many blossoms honeybees just ignore because they have flowers more interesting to them close by, and others, like Padus Avium or Philadelphus L. or Blackcurrant for example is filled with wild bees and bumblebees, but honeybees don't go near them.

This is crazy! When my farming uncle gets too much fruit overloading a tree he just pulls off the excess fruit while it is small so it doesn’t suck energy from the tree and break limbs. Pulling off the excess fruit also makes the remaining fruit get larger. Problem solved.

As an ex-bee keeper who stopped keeping bees just this year, I should urge people to watch this video and learn from it a great deal. *The completely wrong policy in agriculture generally and in bee keeping produced devastating results in the whole world.* For example in Serbia people are massively officially called to engage in bee keeping, promising them large profit and implying easy money, even without enough food (read nectar) in surroundings. In America I read that in areas with black locust only every fifth year is recorded to yield honey harvest. And so on and on, long topic - this is permaculture site and not bee keeping site so I shall stop burdening readers with this. The video is very good to get the bigger picture for everybody, both permaculture-inclined or classic agriculture people or bee keepers. Thank you very much for sharing this information.

In my wife's garden, she has planted flowers and herbs that attract a variety of native bees and pollinators. Before she did this I only saw honey bees around our house. Now I see over 10 different species of native bees and a ton of other insects that I have never seen before in my life. We also noticed that her harvest has increased to where we have to generally give produce away to friends and neighbors, a problem I enjoy having.

@StefanSobkowiak

4 жыл бұрын

Wonderful

@StefanSobkowiak

4 жыл бұрын

Wonderful

I'm a beekeeper, and I keep my bees away from orchards and monoculture agriculture. Way too many chemicals. I prefer pasture, hay, and natural vegetation for my bees. Alot of our disease problems are a result of moving bees across the country. We have successfully globalized every disease and parasite with no learning in the process. I agree that native bees should be prioritized. I enjoy the discussion here. I have a few fruit trees here and will try some of these techniques to improve my chemical free system (I expect some fruit for the first time this year). I am trying a type of regenerative agriculture. I run a moveable chicken system around the orchard. They do some pest control and fertilize. I plant clover and other things behind them to improve biodiversity. The goal is to provide constant forage for bees and improve forage for the chickens.

My favorite pollinator is the gorgeous bumblebee!

@janetc2241

4 жыл бұрын

THE GUY NEXT DOOR PLAYS BAD MITTEN WITH THEM.

@bank80

4 жыл бұрын

@@janetc2241 Lol, we use to do the same when I was a child.

@leoreyes6969

4 жыл бұрын

I’m building my colonys future home this winter and plan on ordering in a queen and re populating my area

@jebdulles5809

3 жыл бұрын

mine is the Mason Bee. 1 can do the job of about 100 honey bees.

@badreality2

3 жыл бұрын

Nah, they sting mercilessly, when you trip over their nest. Try carpenter bees, if you do not have open wood, that you care if they bore into. They look just like bumblebees, and only sting when imminently threatened.

Great video. I have recently purchased 11 acres, am planting a permaculture orchard, and am a beekeeper. I have both orchard trees with companion plants on one side, and meadow/native flowers on the other side of the farm. What I've noticed is that the native bees and wasps are all over the orchard plants, and the honeybees are mainly on the meadow flowers and not in the orchard.

@StefanSobkowiak

3 жыл бұрын

I hope to see your progress over time. Take lots of pictures and videos.

@tankster5826

2 жыл бұрын

You must plant attractive flowers and herbs near the orchard trees. You’re lured them away from the trees. Don’t plant too many flowers that bloom during orchard bloom times either. You want them on the trees. White clover comes in different varieties that bloom in different months for full sun meadows. So just pick a variety that blooms June through July after the spring orchard blossoms are done. Then in winter leave them half their honey to feed them during the winter or they will starve. Don’t take honey the first year or if so take very little. Make sure plenty of fresh water is near their hive and that their hive doesn’t get too hot in the sun. Meadow flowers are good after the trees have been pollinated and are through blooming that bloom a little later. Make sure no pesticides are sprayed on trees while they are out. They come out at a certain time in the morning and a certain time in the late afternoon. So spray middle of the day when you don’t see any bees and the poison has time to dry and use one that is less likely to harm bees.

Big ag doesn't care about the need for native pollinators, nor are they the least bit concerned about the problems the honey bee is facing.

@roxanamadalina-dimian6043

3 жыл бұрын

@@hirkimerwilberfart2413 spend some time looking into Big Ag. Research journals, patents, bills and paper trails... Critical thinking

@roxanamadalina-dimian6043

3 жыл бұрын

combined with organic trained intuition is key :-) yes I've been down those rabbit holes

@SuperReznative

3 жыл бұрын

@@roxanamadalina-dimian6043 Yes CRITICAL THINKING has become almost skill... thanks to public school curriculum,, and dumb down entertainment industry.. 👍🙏🍁🇨🇦

Grateful to have Canadian expertise! I agree with your approach and mulching crops based on soil quality is very helpful. Thanks.

Right now I have honeybees. I like them, right now. When I first moved here, my acre was just a monoculture of lawn. I never saw any bees... basically there were no flowering plants! In the last several years I have planted more plants for pollinators (spring, summer and fall) and finally... this year... I am seeing native bees! I was just thinking that I might not keep bees in the future!

Criticism: - title quite lurid - criticism on "industrial"/commercial style beekeeping (guess that was the intention) is not clearly distinguished If one does beekeeping on a smal scale. With distributed colonys. There's nothing wrong with it. That way, honey bees can be a part of the permaculture eco-system. In regions of Europe (and other parts of the "old worls") honey bees have been a part of "permaculturesque"/traditional agriculture (not what's now "conventional agriculture"!). In such environments are (or were 😓) a lot of various honey-bee species. Altough it may attract viewers the title and the statements in this video are at least controversal. -- my opion -- Apart from that I really like your videos and your channel. Keep up the good work.

Thanks for the thought-provoking content Stefan. I just subscribed after watching the comfrey video, then watched this-two videos in and you've made me question twice and solved at least three of my system problems I was confusing myself about! Magic.🌸

@asamusicdude

5 жыл бұрын

VintageTrish same here.the comfrey vid was the first one i saw from him

*Wow, the more diverse your orchard, the Less you Need to Do to be a successful grower. This was powerful. In this case I learned once the permaculture orchard is established, Less (Human Interference) is More. And People, Chickens & Wildlife All Benefits from the Right Orchard. Just Amazing!

We have a ton of native bees and pollinators on our place and usually have something in bloom year round. BUT when we moved all our bees to another location we had major under-pollination on apples and pears. I believe our native pollinators prefer the native plants over the European imports when they have a choice.

just started permacultificating my garden last year and my trees which disappointed in the past have already started fruiting like crazy. gonna be a pleasant harvest this year and i haven't even done a lot yet! can't wait for the results in the future :)

@StefanSobkowiak

3 жыл бұрын

Yes when they start with abundance it is an exciting time. Just remember don't count your fruit until they are in the basket. Many things can still happen, just saying because I've seen most of them.

5:45 - first few years may-BEE ... I saw that animated Bee! Every time you say the word bee in this video an animated bee appears over your mouth! LOL

Thank you for sharing this. I have been worried about pollinators for a while. I took a barren dirt yard and improved the soil and planted scads of native wild flowers to attract pollinators. I started all the flowers from seed to avoid neonicotinoid plants. I'm careful never to use chemicals.2 years ago I had hundreds of monarchs, bumble bees And mason bees. Last year I saw 2 monarchs, and all the cocoons turned black and died.

@StefanSobkowiak

3 жыл бұрын

Sad but nature has all types of outcomes. Nice job of getting your yard transformed.

Dandelion power! :) You teach me soo much. It makes perfect sense to thank you!

I love the 'weedy' orchard! Thank you for sharing this video with the many important messages. To save the bees, pollinators, and beneficial insects - grow flowers and trees and don't use pesticides!

this advice might be good for the US, but here in Europe we have native honey bees, they coexist with all other insects, we cannot separate them.

@Jorg05111980

5 жыл бұрын

There aren't many wild honey bees anymore here in (west) Europe...they are all being held by beekeepers

always struggled to have leafy green in spring. the only thing that grew were the dandelions so we uproot them all and replant them all together. loots of greens. still don't know why they won't grow from seed.

Great video. Very informative. Thank you.

Merci beaucoup pour cette vidéo Stefan, le sujet est rarement traité sous cet angle ! Et bravo pour la qualité de la vidéo, le générique est très sympa, la qualité de l'image et du son rendent service à votre propos, j'ai hâte de voir les prochaines :)

I’ll mow everything but 2 corners of my yard, let the Dandelions grow and bloom and my neighbor looks at me like my yard is crap… I got all the bees and pollinators!!!!!😂🤷🏼‍♂️😎

Love you Steph you are just awesome.

Our area does not support fruit trees, but we do have alfalfa hay fields. Funny thing is, we just bought a hive and missed getting the bees this spring, lol. I see it might be the best thing, but now, what to do with the hive. Can it sit in the garden to attract and house bees in this area? Imagine there won't be any honey, but at least they will have a 5 star hotel:) We do have bumble bees residing under the pump house roof, love watching them come and go. Great video, I love "natural" nature and am very glad to have found your channel.

@StefanSobkowiak

4 жыл бұрын

An empty hive will be used by many species: voles, ants, bumblebees, wasps and a swarm of bees.

Thankyou sir for this very interesting show just great please keep it up and greetings from Sachsen-Anhalt Germany👍🍻😁🙏

Nice....I have honeybees for honey, not for pollination.

@frankdavidson9675

3 жыл бұрын

where do you think your bees pollin comes from ----someones plants--- you are pollinating somebody

@michaelsorensen7567

2 жыл бұрын

@@frankdavidson9675 and maybe that "somebody" is mostly a large field of clover specifically planted to feed bees for honey, fix nitrogen, and feed ruminants. That seems to largely did the potential problems in an orchard, no?

Nice production quality increase!! Cant wait for a whole year more of your videos.

@StefanSobkowiak

6 жыл бұрын

Me too, yes a noticeable improvement. Nothing like starting from scratch as real newbies and learning as we go along.

Wow.... I just had a major paradigm shift.....

@StefanSobkowiak

4 жыл бұрын

That’s the goal.

This video blew my mind. Thank you Stefan

This spring is the first one where I see my 15 new apple trees set in. What a treasure trove these videos are. Thank you Sir.

@StefanSobkowiak

Жыл бұрын

You’re welcome. Soon you will have to plan what you will do with all the fruit.

@FinnBearOfficial

Жыл бұрын

@@StefanSobkowiak I'm thinking cider... But I am looking forward to that problem. One step at a time.

Thank you for posting and sharing your invaulable empirical information.

This may”bee” the best one yet 👍

This video was very informative and eye opening. Thanks for all the great information in a easy to understand format.

Sounds like really good points that we do not see.

Thank you! These videos are fantastic.

Mind blown. Stefan, you are an inspiration. Stumbled on your video channel this evening and so glad I did. Greetings from England UK.

@StefanSobkowiak

4 жыл бұрын

Welcome, some binge watching in store for the next week?

Excellent. I love this video. Thanks for posting!

I collect dandelion seeds by lighting afire a mature seed head to remove fluff, then just stuff the head into a baggie and massage the seeds off........you can get a 1/8 bag in a few weeks of random lawn gathering, tried them in a raised bed, one thing I notice is later in the year they are more prone to white mildew in pnw ,much like a squash leaf also

Thank you for all of your video’s. I feel like you’ve saved me years of tinkering!!

@StefanSobkowiak

4 жыл бұрын

If you pay attention to the content you will save years. I certainly don’t want you to have to learn all this as slowly as I did with all the trial and error.

Question: I been building a homestead and have been working on setting up a small orchard with mixed fruit trees (Apple, Plum, Cherry, Peach, nectarines, etc). At some point I would like to establish a few honey bee hives for honey. I have a pasture field that I could probably set the hives on the far end to provide about 300 to 400 yard from the orchard. Will this be a problem? I would probably re-seed some of the field with Clover or other plants for the honey bees. I suppose if the trees become over pollinated that I could cull the fruit buds to a reasonable amount to avoid excessive fruit. This is for a homestead not for commercial production. My orchard will be limited to about 30 fruit trees.

@StefanSobkowiak

3 жыл бұрын

No problem, enjoy the bees wherever you put them. I would put them in the orchard, unless you use insecticide.

@guytech7310

3 жыл бұрын

@@StefanSobkowiak Thank You!

Very interesting and informative. Thank you for your vlogs.

This one was the most surprising of the videos I've watched so far... But it makes sense. BTW, I've found that my "Mountain Mint" to be the single most pollenator friendly plant... Pycnanthemum pilosum... grows to three to four feet tall and has white flowers vice the lavender blooms most of the mint family show. Takes two years to establish and then can become "aggressive"...😉

@StefanSobkowiak

4 жыл бұрын

Aggressive is good it just mean it doesn’t need babying.

I had a jar of apple blossom honey, it was subtle but very nice

Words of wisedom, Stefan. I am few months away from starting a half hectare permacultural orchard in Northern Spain. I'm grabbing a great lot of information from you. Thank you for existing!

@StefanSobkowiak

Жыл бұрын

Wonderful, thanks for getting started. Glad to help.

That is a very interesting point of view, and a series of facts that ought to be shared and discussed more among beginner and advanced permaculturer(ists?). But having to put a cross on honey is a tough decision to make though !

Better over than under. We would be in a lot of trouble without these pollinators. Dont hurt any bees.

Very informative, thank you.

great advice and forward thinking

We just moved but we had carpenter bees that set up camp in our mini orchard in some old logs we had for knife throwing. I loved seeing them. Also, we had paper wasps on one of our back patios and under an eave that I insisted we let be. When we set up shop here I will still have the same philosophy. Although I would love to have a hive for honey purposes so we may have to just manually thin the orchard.

Bees aren't the only pollinators. In fact flies sometimes feed on nectar, beetles, even earwigs when they're foraging don't always destroy the whole flower they're eating.

@amechelb

4 жыл бұрын

Actually there are a lot of species of flies that are solely nectar eaters. They look like mini bees but they actually can be distinguished as flies by their wings and eyes.

@richtmason3792

4 жыл бұрын

@@amechelb Do Hoverflies count as a pollinator in this case?

Love, Thanks

Our Rhododendron has been feeding bumble bee's all winter here in New Zealand.

Greetings from France! We are very grateful for your videos, your work is fantastic and very helpful! :)

@StefanSobkowiak

3 жыл бұрын

Bienvenue

I can't believe what I am hearing.. and it makes sense!

I am going to have to think about this for a while before I know my thoughts and feeling on this. This is big. Thank you for posting this video. I am planting the food - but I'm only in the 3rd year of planting; I have the cover; I have the water, but I also have one hive of healthy honeybees (no treatment, and I don't harvest honey).

@StefanSobkowiak

6 жыл бұрын

Kirsten Whitworth keep and enjoy your honey bees for a few years until you see over pollination. Then you can always give or sell your hives as they will likely multiply before then.

@StefanSobkowiak

6 жыл бұрын

Kirsten Whitworth keep and enjoy your honey bees for a few years until you see over pollination. Then you can always give or sell your hives as they will likely multiply before then.

@kirstenwhitworth8079

6 жыл бұрын

Thank you. Yes, the colony multiplies and swarms every year. I never thought much about how their existence may be robbing native bees. You've opened my eyes.

So informative! and the edits are quite funny too, good job

There are so many honey bees here that I didn't realize until your video (and looked it up) that they are not native to north america. They've been living here for years, moved in on their own.

Un excellent message et le montage est incroyablement drôle! Bravo, je partage ;-)

lovely videos

This is amazing info. Thanks

WOW i have never heard anyone talk bad about the honey bee, that was a great explanation on WHY we don't need them. Challenge excepted we just put in 50 trees & hope to do the same thing each year for the next 10 years. I go back and search your videos all the time. love what you do.

@StefanSobkowiak

3 жыл бұрын

Glad it was helpful! You MAY need honey bees in the first years. Aim to not NEED them for the long term. The goal should be to build a diverse habitat for many native pollinators.

@StefanSobkowiak

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the shout out. Much appreciated.

I didn't 'know' this. But I just felt it. Thank you for posting this.

You are so smart.🧙‍♂️🖐🍎

Thank you.

Interesting perspective. TFP!

I'm working on trying to provide more habitat for native bees, mason bees etc, and for pollinating wasps, those tend to be parasitic to pests here un my area as well.

Dandelion is one of my favorite foods now. Well, roasted root tea... don't kill them, I want the roots!

I would add willows, poplar and maples for bee food. Dandelion is better than nothing but not great, sunflower and aster family are not great either along with blueberries.Even conifers have benefits for pollinators.

Dandelions are so maligned and persecuted in monoculture lawns these days that I want to cry. Crab grass, goose grass, clover and so on are unrecognized food plants, right along with Dandelions. This is another less recognized problem coming out of monoculture agriculture. Nettles, native fruits, "inedible" trees that are both nutritious and tasty are ignored and destroyed in service to so called normal vegetables. I have bees, for personal use only. I enjoy honey, make products from the wax, eat bee bread and propilus and enjoy interacting with them. I also have dozens of different native pollinators on my land, and deliberately plant for flowers when dearths are part of my local ecology.

Reason I have massive surplus of oregano, for example, the native bees thrive on the long lasting blooms. This continent did fine for tens of millions of yr.s without Euro bees.

You should have more subscribers and views, perhaps add permaculture orchard to channel title

my problem is NO BEES i moved here 6 yrs ago zone 7 sc about 100 miles from beachi have yet to see 1 honey bee we do have a few wasps but that is it we have peach trees and flowers muscadine vines

Great videos

The other problem is that if everyone uses the same speciment of bee then it's gonna damage the insect biosphere by damaging biodiversity.

This is so interesting... My yard in South Georgia, US, Has tons of pollinators. I have sweat bees, all kinds of different wasps, Carpenter bees. I'm not sure if lizards hello with pollination but we have tons. We also have a lot of "pests", but I'm not seeing damage from those "pests" except for black sooty mold on my citrus, but after trimming the trees back that's a lot better. Been here 2 years now, and I'm seeing flowers and bushes bloom that we haven't seen bloom in 3 spring and summers. I really do wonder what the previous owners were doing with the property. They took all of the mulch out... So I think that's part of the issue. We only have .43 acres but we have so much fruit here. I'm growing pineapples and avacados in pots. I have a fig tree, orange, grapefruit, lime, and a bunch of kumquat bushes. I used to have another lime and lemon but the freeze from the winter before last killed them. We also have herbs and berry bushes, and a ton of bushes and flowers.

@StefanSobkowiak

4 жыл бұрын

Sounds wonderful.

I just like the honey from my honey bee but I agree don't over do it . i have a hive on 4 acre. With plenty of woods around . I have many other pollinators even in the garden you notice the choices of different pollinators . I can see how raising honeybee for honey production could starve or limit food .. That is a great point if I had 20 hives competing it would dry up the resources.

Great tips...

@StefanSobkowiak

3 жыл бұрын

Glad you like them!

Great topic and very informative. This is something I've wondered about for some time. I could do without the bee images popping out of your mouth when you say "be," though.

I couldn't believe this caption. Dad had Bert Bees move some of his hives onto our property to pollinate his fruit trees, we always had bumper crops

@StefanSobkowiak

2 жыл бұрын

Bumper is great, OVER Bumper is not.

Having to thin out fruit is labor intensive

Also good to have some elders here and there, their hollow stems provide habitat for native bees.

do you remove dead wood or do you allow it to rot where it falls or do you shred it and use it as a mulch.

@StefanSobkowiak

4 жыл бұрын

We now leave dead trees standing as a trunk and remove the limbs.

Mind blowing…

I wonder if I pulled about 15% of my flower buds if that woukd cut down the pollination, hence not getting a super bumper crop as I have had in years past little to no fruit following. Any ideas?

@StefanSobkowiak

2 жыл бұрын

That’s possible but do you know for sure your remaining flowers will be pollinated? Best to wait until fruitlets form and thin them to one per cluster.

nice info keep the vids coming

I’m not a fan of the honeybee theory. Their benefits outweigh the negatives.

💛 Huh, who knew.

I am a beekeeper and also apples , Honeybee does not go to apple trees. It doesn't see apple flowers.

Beginner gardener here - my yard is small but I want to have fruit trees. I’d like a variety but I keep seeing that my crop would be better off with another variety of the same fruit. Do I need two apples, two peaches, two plums and two cherries or can they help each other individually ?

@StefanSobkowiak

2 жыл бұрын

Two of each unless you use some that are self fertile, then you just need one of them.

Where we live we appatently don't have many native pollinators left anymore. I have mason bees and early fruit set is very good. After the mason bees are gone for the year the fruit set is almost nonexistent. Now we have healthy plants with flowers but almost no fruit. There was a bee keeper near by, his swarms very often settled in our tall trees. For the last few years I haven't seen any swarms and there are almost no honey bees to be found. I am thinking about keeping a Warri'e hive just for pollination. Hoping that I can keep a hive alive here.

@StefanSobkowiak

4 жыл бұрын

Sounds like there is a lack of wintering habitats for the bees, tall grass uncut, brush piles, firewood stacks all help.

@davej7458

4 жыл бұрын

@@StefanSobkowiak That may be a contributing factor. We are and will work on it.

Great video Besides the volume being to LOW

maybe have one honey bee-box (unless they still over pollinate, maybe its not your thing, but I'd like to have honey) the plums, pears, apples, and cherries arent native to the Americas either, and you're growing them. but again, if over pollination is a problem then i guess its fine for you

keeping bees for ther honey...not for polination...

To extend the time you have flowers, plant a patch of buckwheat

He sounds a little like Kermit and I adore it. 🐸