todays news

[Bridget]

It was a bit of an eye-opener seeing how light some of the colonies were at the association apiary yesterday. Soon to go and check out as many of mine as I can see before the heavy rain returns later, and I'll be taking feed with me. Some of my apiaries are near OSR but others are not - it is the latter that might be suffering.

I saw the same on Monday - was quite shocked at how little stores left and have had syrup on them ever since, which they are draining dry so filling up every day. Not sure how long to keep feeding - was working on the principle that they will stop when they have enough but don't want them to fill up all the brood space. Hope to get in there to check it out soon as by the look of them they will need a super very soon. Looks like being wet and windy for the next two days.

[busybeephilip]

now there is the beginnings of a gale and heavy rain. This weathers crazy - I need good weather in the next few weeks for the tree flow, bees are ready for it. Noticed some drone brood being thrown out of the weaker hives, a sign that food is getting critical.

[Jon]

Yep. Chestnut and then sycamore is probably the most important source of nectar in May. The Chestnut is already in flower and the sycamore will be along soon.

[mbc]

Sycamore's an odd one round these parts, sometimes yielding copiously, sometimes sparingly and sometimes nowt at all. I reckon to have a good sycamore year one in seven, and it often coincides with hawthorn yielding too which is a much stronger flavoured honey and so swamps the sycamore flavour. Generally get a bit on the hawthorn so long as no gales come to rattle off the first set of bloom.

[busybeephilip]

Generally get a bit on the hawthorn .

Ah yes, the "Hawthorne honey flow", loads of this where I live, I even have loads near my hives along with lots of the yellow flowering whin bushes, I see lots of bees on the whins but never ever on the hawthorne, lots of flys and hover flies (the one that often get confused as bees). I see bees on cheastnut , sycamore and maple but never on hawthorne - why ?

I reckon this is another beekeepers myth - the hawthorne honeyflow that just happens to coincide with the tree flow !

for discussion ? (oH -I did see a bee on hawthorne once - placed on it for to take a photograph)

[busybeephilip]

bee on hawthorne - search "hawthorne bee" in google images shows a bee on hawthorne but look closely - thats not a hawthorne leaf but a fruit tree of some sort

Blackthorne is different, it flowers earlier than hawthorne and it does attract bees - you need to know your thorns.

blackthorn (may flower as sometimes it is called here) the flowering finishes as the hawthorne starts - I think this leads to the confussion

Another picture http://dustygedge.co.uk/wp-content/g...hawthorn-3.jpg except its not a bee !!!

My old bee book lists hawthorne as a poor nectar plant but usefull for pollen

[Jon]

Mine collect a lot of pollen from Hawthorn.

[chris]

Right now, mine are going crazy on the hawthorn.Mainly pollen, but some nectar gatherers. Maybe the ridiculous amount of sunshine? I remember a post by 'weewilyl' on the old bbka forum where he said the mayflower gives only once in 7 years.Coincides with mbc's sycamore?

[busybeephilip]

It appears that there is also different cultivated varieties of hawthorne that honeybees do visit, but the wild hedgerow form is basically ignored by bees ( eg the one I have here) . Of these the single flower cultivated forms attract bees but the double flowered ones do not, they also come in white or pink, so you need to know what type of plant you are looking at. I supose its possible to have differences in wild cultivars the length and breadth of the country and those in europe different again just like one has differences in the types of black bee up and down the country.

[prakel]

Blackthorne is different, it flowers earlier than hawthorne and it does attract bees - you need to know your thorns.

blackthorn (may flower as sometimes it is called here) the flowering finishes as the hawthorne starts - I think this leads to the confussion

Really confusing. I've always been under the understanding that the 'May' is hawthorn.

Blackthorn: one of the best years for flowers I can remember but, on Portland the bees only had a couple of days on it at the very end of the flowering (when it was well past being much use) after the heavy rain of two weeks ago; the previous month (as per every other year) they ignored it totally. Meanwhile, three miles away across the causeway you could hear the bees working it from quite some distance throughout it's flowering period. Need to know soil as well as the thorns.