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Re: Forage , what's flowering in your area?

PostPosted:30 Jun 2020, 18:53
by NigelP
What you are probably seeing Chris is Bell heather. It starts to flower about a month earlier than ling heather. I've tried several times for a bell heather harvest, taking some bees to the moors early July.....failed every time.
If you ever get some it's a ruby red honey which will spin out like any other honey.

Re: Forage , what's flowering in your area?

PostPosted:30 Jun 2020, 19:33
by Chrisbarlow
NigelP wrote:
30 Jun 2020, 18:53
What you are probably seeing Chris is Bell heather. It starts to flower about a month earlier than ling heather. I've tried several times for a bell heather harvest, taking some bees to the moors early July.....failed every time.
If you ever get some it's a ruby red honey which will spin out like any other honey.
Cheers Nigel. I never knew that

Re: Forage , what's flowering in your area?

PostPosted:04 Jul 2020, 21:33
by Chrisbarlow
Water balsam is flowering. Yay. It's not yielding though. No white backs coming into hives

Re: Forage , what's flowering in your area?

PostPosted:17 Jul 2020, 22:43
by Patrick
Small-leaved Limes blooming with huge amounts of blossom and buzzing with bees of all types.

Often doesn’t seem to produce much nectar locally but this year is a bee magnet. Same elsewhere?

Re: Forage , what's flowering in your area?

PostPosted:18 Jul 2020, 08:19
by NigelP
I shall have to wander down to my lime avenue a few hundred yards away to check. Most years lots of insects on it but rarely honey bees. If you look at the my summer blossom honey analysis it was 15th in the top 15 abundant taxa at around 1%. However conditions are promising for a slight increase this year as its been hot but humid around me and you need those conditions for optimal harvest. Lime has an open flower which produces nectar in the morning thta quickly dries out in dry weather so is gone before thebees have chance to work it.

Interesting the difference height makes. Rosebay willow herb is out all around me at the bottom of the Hambledon escarpment, but on the top about 500 ft higher it's no where near.

Re: Forage , what's flowering in your area?

PostPosted:18 Jul 2020, 13:01
by Patrick
Same here, often seems mainly ignored by honey bees but not around here at the moment. Result.

There used to be some controversy about huge reported die offs of bumblebees under Limes (particularly Silver Limes), with even Von Frisch having a theory. No evidence of that thankfully. Not ever read a convincing explanation once the toxic nectar theory was disproved. Only time I have seen similar was under a flowering tree in an ornamental garden in ? Canary Islands ? when I was a nipper. It was entirely carpeted under the canopy in dead bumblebees. No recollection of what sort of tree but it disturbed even then.

Re: Forage , what's flowering in your area?

PostPosted:20 Jul 2020, 08:56
by Steve 1972
The bees have quite a lot to play with at this time of the year..what i can see forage wise is..Broad leaf Willow Herb/Rosebay Willow Herb/Meadow Sweet and masses of clover and thistle.. the game keeper also has a 3m cover crop around every field that contains lots of Phacilia..

Re: Forage , what's flowering in your area?

PostPosted:26 Jul 2020, 19:59
by Steve 1972
Another field of Phacilia has just turned blue 300yards away and the bees are working it aswell as Broad Leaf Willow Herb and Bramble..i was always led to believe that BLWH does not produce nectar but from watching the bees today i now know it produces nectar..the little darlings where all over it in the garden today digging there little Proboscis deep into the center of the flowers with not a grain of pollen being collected.

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Re: Forage , what's flowering in your area?

PostPosted:27 Jul 2020, 10:42
by NigelP
Tempted to B&B a few hives at your place. :) ...it's all slowed down around me at the moment.

Re: Forage , what's flowering in your area?

PostPosted:27 Jul 2020, 10:51
by Steve 1972
There is loads of space Nigel and you are more than welcome but it is a long old drive for you..its a shame the farmers around you do not see the benefit of growing Phacilia as a green manure..it is high in nitrogen when ploughed back into the ground..