Bees trucked in for pollination do not get much honey made from apple... at least around here.

A beekeeper today must visit more often (than years ago) to inspect and manage the bees.

If this area, having hives on your site for the apple bloom (of perhaps 3-4 weeks) would cost you $45-$50 per hive in rental fees.

Your apples will improve from about 10-20% pollination to nearly 100% pollination. It was described as "think of a honeybee as a $10 bill flying through your orchard." Of course a good or bad crop also depends on weather, and whether you're going to spray or not.

What I'm saying here, is with 250 apple trees, the benefit of hives to you is SEVERAL times the benefit to the beekeeper, so unless you find a beekeeper desparate for a place to park his hives, you may not be able to find one to do it for free.

I pretty much ditto ccrb1's comments. General rule of thum is 1 hive per acre of apple trees, but more may be needed depending on weather, proximity to the trees, other flowers that bloom at the same time nearby, etc.

Hives brought in just for pollination is always a charge thing. It can be hard on the bees and beekeeper (labor), and rarely if every produce surplus honey off of apples. Prices may vary depending on number of hives rented, time period, distance they must be moved, accessability of the site, etc.

On the other hand though, If you have a suitable location where 10-30 hives can be placed year round then it may be done for free (in trade). Of course then the beekeeper will be looking at other things, accessability, water nearby, other forage in the area, enough distance from the trees to preven spraying, etc. You might find a hobbiest that only needs a place for 2-3 hives, but most sideliners/commercial beekeerps would want more at one location before it's worth the travel time.

Either way, you'll need to find a beekeeper near you. The local agriculture extention office may be able to help and a local beekeeperin association may be a better bet. There is a list of such organizations on beesource.com

Contacting your local ag extension office is a good suggestion. Asking neighbors if there are any beekeepers in the area could also help.

I'll weigh in by saying that 20 hives for 10 acres of trees is probably best for your area given that they would be overwintering there. This is because overwintered hives are not typically at their strongest when apples bloom. If hives are trucked in, they cost much more but they tend to have thousands more bees and to be better managed.

I placed some bees in watermelons this year at a charge of $25 per hive. I would have charged much more except that the farmer was a personal friend of 30 years and I only had to move the bees 7 miles and the location they were placed was almost perfect for bees with water 100 yards away and an open shady area for the hives. In addition, I get to leave the bees at the site until early November so they don't get disrupted during the fall nectar flow.

There is a tendency on the part of farmers to skimp on things like pollination. This is one of the worst possible things to try to save money on. On 10 acres of apples, you can expect your crop to double or even triple. The negatives of getting bees for pollination could include overloaded trees with limbs breaking (use an aggressive winter pruning strategy!) and an increase in small to medium sized apples (still worth more than a much smaller number of larger apples).

Re the watermelons, the farmer harvested over 20,000 pounds per acre this year with bees for pollination and sold his melons at an average price of 5 cents per pound. He grew watermelons last year without contracting bees for pollination and lost money on the crop.

Fusion

Fusion you bring up a good point. Depending on the cultivar of apple, you can get 10% without bees compared with 100% with bees.

And the partial failure of the almond crop this year was, they say, due to a shortage of bee pollination.

But in the past beekeepers are underpriced their bees, and heck! there were plenty of feral bees that would do the job anyway.

But now, with feral populations at a record low level, due to mites, the pollination contracts with a beekeeper is vital.

Some keepers are still charging $20 - $30 per hive, just like one old guy here is selling his honey at $6 a quart... then complaining he's not making any money. The sooner he gets a realistic price on his honey... or gets out of the business, the better. I'd prefer he just price things right.