Even though bees like to visit citrus flowers, the citrus trees don't need the bees to set fruit. There's a word for it, can't remember right now, but it means each flower can set a fruit without any help from any other flower's pollen, it's own is enough. So don't worry about that.

Don't pull off the flowers, they will tend to just make more flowers. Instead wait until the baby fruit is starting to form, then remove the fruit. I do think it's a good idea to remove the first year's crop to let the tree concentrate it's energy on growing larger. The crop after this one, I'd leave about 20-30% of what sets, and more the years after that.

Except for the first year or so, you usually don't have to thin citrus fruit. You'll find after the first few weeks or so after fruit set, the tree will drop a lot of the baby fruit, so it will self-thin. So folks do thin a bit more to get larger fruit, but you don't have to.

Parthenocarpic is the word, Barb :-) The ability to set fruit without pollination (self or cross). Nearly all citrus are parthenocarpic with just a few exceptions. Barb has given you good advice. Unless your tree has a pretty large canopy, you'll want to make sure your tree either self-thins down to just a few fruit, or, you should thin at the pea size, so your tree has a chance to get established. Often a new tree will completely drop all fruit, which is perfectly normal. Just its way of self-establishing.

Patty S.

Thank you for the advice - much appreciated!