Heather weather

[Jambo]

It is a good nectar producer but according to Kirk and Howes our bees' tongues are too short for it. Mine ignore it most of the time.

[greengumbo]

It is a good nectar producer but according to Kirk and Howes our bees' tongues are too short for it. Mine ignore it most of the time.

They love the orange ball variety ! Like jambo says the normal purple ones are too deep for honeybees.

[Bridget]

So final taking off of the honey today. Absolutely no heather honey to be seen in any of the hives. This was pretty much as I had expected as we had not seen the usual frantic heather blossom excitement in August. That’s not to say the bees were not busy, they were always busy, getting my hopes up!
Only the overwintered hives had enough remaining blossom stores to remove, all the swarms and splits had obviously had enough of a flow to draw the foundation in the brood and supers but little light in the way of stores now.


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[Bridget]

Here in the Highlands still struggling with the weather. Just stopped feeding after all that rain in May and June. Feel sorry for the bees trying to get out and forage. I read somewhere needs to be 15 degrees for nectar - is that true? If so no wonder they have been struggling. Certainly no blossom honey this year but our main crop is heather. Some bell heather out but we don’t have much. The other heather looks healthy in the sheltered woods but some of the moor not looking great yet.


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