Bumper Apple Harvest - Weird Black Dots

I can't believe how many apples I have on my trees this year. 
 
Last year, I didn't have time to prune my apple trees. You can see how the tops of the trees have no apples on them. Because they weren't pruned, I was worried we wouldn't get very many apples. Even without the pruning, it was a bumper crop year for apples. 
 
Here is a post where I show how I dry my apples. I talk in this post about how half of my apples usually have worm holes in them as I don't spray the trees. 
 
The pictures of these apple trees show lots of apples but this picture was taken after we have already dried at least twelve huge bags full of apples. I have had three dehydrators going 24 hours a day for over a week. 

I know my family is excited about that as they love eating the apples off my tree.

This year, my apples have NO worm holes. I have only had about 20 worm holes out of the hundreds of apples I have dried this year. I have no idea why the apples don't have worms this year. 

There is something new to this years apples. They have lots of little black spots on them that wash off with a little work. They don't leave a mark underneath almost like bug dots. 

I have no idea what is going on with them but there are lots of flying bugs on the trees but no holes in the apples so I wonder if they are "good" bugs like lady bugs that eat other bugs or something.   


Princess two dumps a garbage sack of peels and cores in the mulch every day and picks two or three bags of apples for me to dehydrate each day. 

Each dehydrator takes about 45 minutes to an hour to fill with apples using the peeler / corer. 

Washing the apples takes about 1/2 hour. Each day I get about 2 gallon zip bags full of dried apples. So, for two gallons of dried fruit, it is about four hours of work. 

I don't think that people realize how much time it takes to dehydrate fruit but it is so much better to eat than the store bought fruit.

 
I tried to show a picture of the little dots on the apple but when I took a picture with the flash, it wouldn't show up but without the flash, you can't see the black dots well. 

I am thrilled for the amounts of apples we are enjoying this year and how it is replenishing my stock of dried apples that have been going down as we didn't have much of a crop the last few years.
 
I also made fruit non-stick pads for my third dehydrator this year so I can dry the fruit more quickly. 

You can see them in this picture here and you can also see in this picture here that Princess Five has been doing some snacking on the fruit as it was drying.  Click here for how I show how to make the non-stick fruit sheets for dehydrators out of plastic canvas.