I have 18+ acres of farm land in south central PA, so this year will begin to take several types I have rooted the past few years known for hardiness and start an orchard to perserve some larger trees I cannot support at home due to space. The rolling hills here have not been touched in many decades and have been hay pasture for 100+ years. The upper side the attached field picture I will allocate about an acre to several rows of fig trees. To the left of this 11 acre field is my hillside leading to a landing/road where my garage and facilities are. Another project for this area on the hillside I have planned to install several bee hives, the demise of bees across the country is bothering me so I want to experiment on strenthening the population and look at things to reduce colony collapse.

Good luck with your orchard.  It must be amazing to have acreage like that of good land.  Let us know what does best for you in the orchard.  Are you going to provide any winter protection for the trees?

The rows will be up on the far side of the field, along the slope which faces the winter southern sky.  I was planning on protecting them when young, but am thinking of options for wind blockage and winter sun heat retention

Good looking piece of land.  I am trying the same thing on a similar piece of land in North Georgia also zone 7 so I really hope the best for you.

Wish both you guys the best of luck.  Down the road post some pictures.

Many thanks, what is nice beyond the elbow room, is aside from the field is the hillside going up to the driveway and flat area is rocky so was thinking of carving out some alcoves for a few trees.  The deer are aggressive and so are bear, so also need to protect the trees until they are bigger from the critters.

JackJVNA I forgot to mention that I already have some bee hives on my property and man it is hard to raise bees.  My dad kept bees when I was a kid and I don't remember it being this hard.  I have figure out that I am much better at killing bees than raising them.  So good luck to you on that part too.

goss

I bought several books on it last year, and plan on buying a couple starter hive colonies, and the seller lives near me in PA so offered to help get them "settled" .  What I am worried about is the mites and colony collapse issue that appear to affecting the nation.  Not too many active truck farms around me so I assume the pesticide use is low in my area.

Beautiful, good luck with all your plans. One question - do bears eat figs ???

If they can smell the sugar, they will eat it

Yes bears eat figs. Bears eat honey. Bears are a real pain on any farming property as they also like to snap trees to get to higher fruit.

Jack, if that field has been a hay field so long how's the soil? My last property that was used for hay was in really bad shape. I ended up buying every load of damaged hay and straw I could get delivered cheap to add organics to my soil. After 3 years we went from zero worms per shovel load to really decent soil. My trees in the improved soil did far better then ones I planted in areas I hadn't treated yet. Old hay fields are notorious for being dead hard pan soil here in Virginia. Have you checked your soil for nutrients?

Jack,
Thanks for posting.
Good Luck with the orchard... Please keep us updated on your progress.
The previous owner of my home had several bee hives and they were surrounded by an electrified fence to protect them from Bears.

The field is not in tough shape rather I have done green manure and turned it over 4 x so far.  The cost of gas has forced the local farmer to not want to hay the field the past 5 years so I mow it now. Its just pasture grass vs a high quality grass/grain and I have had a local dairy farmer spread manure a couple times over the field, and I have plowed and cultivated it. The soil in this part of the PA hillsides is brown soil that test ok vs the hardpan clay I find in VA.

Jack,
That's great.
It sounds like you are pro active and smart enough to realize the soil is life itself.
I think whatever you do will work just fine as you obviously understand soil better then most.

The majority of the field will not be an orchard rather wanted to try my hand someday with grain. I want to place the figs at the far end up near the hillside that offers a southern view and I can build up some soil and rock berms to offer some thermal mass near the figs.  The place will be nice to keep some larger trees protected if done with care. Thanks for the compliments

yeah I read books watched youtube videos and all that.  There is a forum I believe it is Bee Source a lot of good info there.  I built all my hives frames and all the wood work.  I enjoyed the building of the equipment as much as fooling with the bees.  I'm hoping for better results this year.  I do have some market gardners around so I'm sure I have a certain amount of pesticides to contend with along with all the other problems.

good luck to you
goss

goss,
I have a bunch of buddies that are into bees and I salute you for understanding that pesticides are a huge part of the equation most miss or choose to ignore.

I used to breed parrots and used bee pollen in their feed. I got this pollen from Spain. From 1980 to 1986 I used but never tested. In 1986 a buddy of mine graduated and started working for a company that tested for contamination. After he tested my feed for me I was shocked. The pesticide load was incredible. The bee pollen was loaded with poisons. I looked at US bee pollen and it was't any better -- well a tad -- but still way too hot for me -- or more accurately way to hot to feed the birds I was charged with.

My 2 best friends both have degrees in entomology and one has a masters in bee keeping. It is an industry so far and so deep in terrible practices that I'm amazed.

I have been encouraging alternative pollinators for years and I believe the percentage now is that 85% of my garden is pollinated by insects other then honey bees and it's possible that the only honey bees I see are all "wild".

I really like some of the new hive designs. I'm always day dreaming about starting a hive and I love wood working, but I really get turned off by the parasites and now by the whole industry. The ignorance and abuse of these critters is such a huge turn off. That and I love my little blue bees and beetles and flies, etc.

3 years ago I was living on an organic farm and we saw an occasional 'wild" honey bee, but as I said, we were providing homes for the alternatives, and weren't encouraging the European bees at all. Now I'm trying to find a way to help the honey bees without having to babysit a hive. Because of the alternative pollinators here in the mid Atlantic our crops still do well, but I'm always looking for a way to help any beneficial insect.

Hopefully the bee keepers can solve the Colony Collapse issue and the Africanized problem soon, and hopefully they'll also "luck" into a way to deal with both mite species. Until then, however, I'll keep supporting all the beneficials I can as they may turn out to be our only answer and fortunately I live on the east coast where this is possible. The west, on the other hand,  is a very scary equation.

Michael,

I am trying all new approaches to what is considered normal bee keeping here.  Top entrance hives,  foundationless frames, and no chemicals so far.  My hope is to try to breed a resistant bee from all the mite problems and other diseases.  If the industry is able to do this it will be a huge step in eliminating a lot of chemicals now used in hives.  The Hotter bees like african and russian seem better capable of caring for themselves from a lot of the parasites.  So we may have a hotter bee in the future.  Education is the only step to  eleminate crop
chemical poisons though.  Either that or big government and big farmers to wake up and realize they are poisoning the land and it's animals human included.  The bee source forum I mentioned earlier is a good source to learn how to do bees chemical free or otherwise.  Lot's of people trying to do bees with no chemicals some successfully.  I say get on board and help save the honey bee.  I love for our crops to be pollinated but I also love honey.  None of the other bees/insects produce honey and some plants the bees just do a better jop.

thanks
goss

goss,
Well said. I love honey as well and am always amazed when I pop the lid off a mason jar full of rich wonderful and 10 year old honey. What other food - besides Twinkies - has a shelf life like that?