That's the good news! Here's a couple fantastic bee pictures that a photographer friend, Rob O'Hoski took on a perfectly timed hike in the orchards.
And you can see here how much the pears have grown in the month since the bees have been.
Here are some Bartletts
These are Giffords
(Early 'sugar' pears)
And the beautiful Flemish Beauties!
On the surface it all looks good, the trees are loaded, it is going to make thinning them a huge job potentially. However, there is still the 'June drop' to come. We are eagerly waiting for the J drop this year, and hoping that not only will the trees naturally abort the smaller weaker pears( you can see the pears that aren't developing in the clusters in these pictures). We are also hoping some of the frost damaged pears will also drop. I found a few of the little guys lying under a Bartlett, there were none at all under the Flemish trees I looked at.
Some of the frost damaged pears are still growing but they have a green ring around them, though they look normal when we cut them open. Some look normal on the outside but have a black inside where the seeds are supposed to be... don't know why, but these are the ones that should drop, would make our lives a lot easier.
That's part of the roller coaster, some days it looks like a great crop, some days it looks tragic, just depends where in the orchards we are.
And those darn suckers just grow and grow! Starting suckering this week, there'll be two rounds of suckering this year. Twice for every tree if we get the first round done fast enough. That's a lot of hours for somebody!
