Southeastern U.S. Vegetable Crop Handbook - 2021 - 69

vested pickling and slicing cucumbers with recommended plant
populations of approximately 25,000 to 30,000 plants per acre. For
mechanical or once-over harvested pickling cucumbers, the recommended
plant populations are generally 55,000 to 60,000 plants
per acre. Therefore, two honeybee hives should be placed per acre
to account for the increased number of flowers from the increased
plant population used for mechanically harvested cucumbers.
When hybrid cucumbers are grown at high plant populations for
machine harvest, flowers require 15 to 20 visits for maximum fruit
set. Generally, as the number of visits increase, there will be an increase
in the numbers of fruit set and an increase in number of seed
per fruit, as well as improved fruit shape and fruit weight.
Bumblebees are an effective pollinator alternative to honeybees
in cucumber production. Bumblebees have some advantages
compared to honeybees; flying under more adverse weather
conditions in which it is cool, rainy or windy. They will also visit
flowers earlier in the morning than honeybees, and fly later in the
afternoon and early evening when the temperatures cool. Because
bumblebees have a larger body size than honeybees, fewer flower
visits are required by bumblebees in order to achieve good pollination
and fruit set.
As with honeybees, bumblebees should be placed in the cucumber
field shortly after the crop begins to flower. Bumblebees
will typically last for 6 to 12 weeks and will meet the pollination
needs of 2 to 3 sequentially planted cucumber crops.
Bumblebee hives are sold as a quad or four hives per quad. A
quad is the minimum order that can be purchased from a supplier.
Generally one bumblebee hive contains 200 to 250 bees and is
equivalent to one honeybee hive. Thus, one quad of bumblebees
(minimum order, contains 4 bumblebee hives) would provide good
pollination for four acres of hand-harvested cucumbers. For machine-harvest
pickling cucumbers, one quad would provide good
pollination for every two acres. Bumblebee hives should not be
placed in direct sunlight so that the bees work more efficiently. No
more than two bumblebee quads should be placed in one location
so that pollination is more uniform in the field. As with honeybees,
one must carefully plan when to spray insecticides so that the bumblebees
are not killed. Because bumblebees are most active from
dawn until late morning and from about 4 PM to sunset, the hives
need to be closed around 11 AM so that the bees in the hive remain
protected during a late evening spray application. Bumblebee
quads should be located a minimum of 650 to 700 feet away from
the other quads in order to maximize pollinator efficiency.
See the section on " Pollination " in the General Production
Recommendations for additional information.
HARVESTING AND STORAGE
See Table 14 for postharvest information.
2021 Vegetable Crop Handbook for Southeastern United States
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Southeastern U.S. Vegetable Crop Handbook - 2021

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