Pincherry is another one of the tree fruit that helps feed the bees in the spring. It blooms in late May. It is also sometimes called bird cherry. The bees and the birds give a one-two punch. Bees get nectar and pollen and pollinate the flowers; birds eat the fruit and poop the seed. The seed can lie dormant for up to 100 years then when the opportunity arises: a clearcut, a fire, gazillions of pincherry sprout. After Hurricane Juan and a clean up clear cut near us there were soon 50 acres of pin cherry ..a bee bonanza. Pin cherry is a short lived pioneeer species whose shade holds moisture and provides cover for more valuable tree species to get started. I once heard of a blueberry grower who wouldn’t put bees in his fields until the nearby pincherry blossom was down …he thought the bees would go to the pincherry in preference to blueberries and his rental money would be wasted. Pincherry helps wild pollinators live and complete their life cycle …weed them out and you could be eliminating free pollinators as well. Seems to me that pincherry is up there with raspberry and fireweed, other opportunistic species that colonize forest openings and offer beekeepers a honey chance. Foody factoid: cyanide in the seeds.
