Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: Aroc on August 04, 2018, 10:37:54 am
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Being part of a grocery store this comes up from time to time. How do you tell if a watermelon is ripe. There are many ways. The best one is to just look at the field spot. Look for one that is yellow in color.
While there are other ways to tell, one particular piece of advice has always tickled me. Not sure where it started. Many grocers will tell you to look for tiny dots on the watermelon. They say these are bee stings and where the bees have tested the melon to see if it is sweet. The theory being the more you see of those the rupee and sweeter the melon.
I do my best to educate people on this telling them bees simply don?t do that. A wives tale from long ago to sell watermelon.
Anyone else come across this?
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This brings up memories. When I was a teenager I had 23 hives about 100 feet from my Dad's watermelon field, there is about 20 acres in that field all watermelons. I do not recall ever seeing bees on a watermelon until it is "busted or cut". We sold watermelons by the truck load and boxcar load. I never heard about bees stinging the melon but boy do they like the blooms. There were several farmers that had fields larger than our fields, they were less than 1mile away.
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Aroc, I have wanted to know how to tell if a melon was ripe for eons. I always thumped and this was not so accurate. Honey bees sure are attracted to an open melon. An acquaintance was stung in the mouth eating a slice of melon, but did not cause any problems other than minor swelling.
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Forgot to say the people that harvested watermelons always used the thump method or a very practiced eye, but thump was the final test.
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I?ve heard the watermelons with the biggest yellow patch on the side are the best.
Lizzie
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Lisbee,
That is how my wife looks for a ripe Mellon. Since she has been doing that they have been very good.
Jim
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My sister is the designated watermelon selector in my family. She used to do the thumping method, then for a while she used the "which one is heaviest" method, and then she got on seeing which one had the largest yellow spot, but none of the methods seemed to work consistently, so now she just picks the first one she lays eyes on! :cheesy:
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Ripen watermelon has a white powder covering all over it. The young watermelon does not. Also the
end has a hard skin when you press your thumb into it. Be careful though as the unripe ones will crack if you
push too hard.
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biggest yellow spot, firm, not soft, ends.
But I have to say, when I can find a melon with "sugar kisses", aka "bee stings", I will take it first, because I have never seen a bad one so kissed!