Share The Seeds
Gardening Area => Beekeeping => Topic started by: Sunshine on November 26, 2013, 04:36:21 AM
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I just came across this list of plants that are listed with their attributes with regard to nectar and pollen. I've noticed that goldenrod, alfalfa, mint, dandelion, and clover are some of the most mentioned plants in articles on which flowering plants honey bees love. I think it would be a safe bet to say that if those were planted around your beehives the bees would be more than happy. All of those plant seeds are easily obtainable and, depending on your location, grow wildly. In my area dandelion and clover are almost considered weeds they grow so abundantly. The leaves of the latter are actually used by my grandmother to make Italian style salads.
Next spring/summer I can get as many dandelion seeds as I want and anyone is welcome to have some, gratis. Mint also grows in one part of my yard prolifically and its cuttings are easily rooted with no hormones whatsoever. If anyone wants some feel free to message me.
Attached is a pdf of plants which produce flowers that honeybees love. Enjoy! :)
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Saw a special on T.V. and one farmer said this species provided for the best type of honey.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupelo
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Theres also regional specialty honey that is often more valuable because of how rare it is.
Theres no really "best" honey as far as a specific nectar. However there are flowers that are the most prominent and unique flower of the area and produce nectar with a unique taste. These would be the regional honeys.
In my area, this would be sourwood.
My dad said tupelo is for the texas area
I had no idea that honeybees were into mint. I must grow more!! I bet that a predominantly mint honey would have a very interesting taste!
Mint is also evergreen and encourages other beneficial insects. However its got some tiny seeds!
Hehe
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Thanks for the input Permie, that makes since. My father is getting some bees from my uncle from down in Georgia this year.
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Acnistus arborences(fruta do sabia), that the meliponidae love that flowers cause provides nectar and pollen!! this specie of bees are stingless...and some popular knowledge says that produce a medicinal honey!
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I can't believe I didn't think of this, but last year I noticed that my bundleflowers were always being frequented by bees. They had the most bees of of all my plants.
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Rivea corymbosa is used by most bee farmers in Cuba. It is a great source for those in warm climates.
nobody
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Rivea corymbosa is used by most bee farmers in Cuba. It is a great source for those in warm climates.
nobody
Magic honey
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The best tasting honey i have tried was cactus honey from morocco, i beleive the cactus which the bees gathered from was primarily prickly pear (Opuntia). I expect other cacti could produce nice flavours though :)
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The bees here absolutely love spiderwort flowers. Anyone interested in spiderwort for their bees or just a pretty yard wild flower hit me up!
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Oncimum spp. are great for the bees, as medicinal plant and to add more flavor in our plates! Lamiaceae plants (includes sages) are good plants for bees.
Also my Caapi plants are visited by a huge variety of bees and other insects.
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For anyone in the right climate tupelo trees produce a world famous honey. My property I'll be moving to in the coming months is in the heart of tupelo honey production. I want to get in on that someday!
Also manuka trees from New Zealand produce a unique and medicinal honey.
Anybody know what plant in African contributes to the making of the so called entheogenic honey?
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The ethneogenic honey is made from rhododendron flowers. I imagine one could actually encourage bees to make it locally by planting lots of rhododendrons near the hive. Being that I plan on selling/giving away my honey to family as Christmas gifts I wouldn't do it, though. It'd be too dangerous.
If you're interested in getting started I can help you out with regards to guiding you on what you'll need as well as other golden tid bits of knowledge. There is TONS of stuff to learn about beekeeping. A lot of people think it's as simple as putting bees in a box but it is so much more complex than that.
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I know most people cut the flowers off their basil to encourage leaf growth but I usually at least leave a few on there because the bees go NUTS for them. I always feel bad for them when I'm trimming flowers off because they're always there collecting nectar.
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We seriously have like a hive worth of bees that come to the datura every evening when the flowers start to open. Wonder who's eating that honey :o
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We seriously have like a hive worth of bees that come to the datura every evening when the flowers start to open. Wonder who's eating that honey :o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_b2i_FvYPw
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solanaceous honey sounds deliriously delicious (or deliciously delirious) to me... would make for some interesting experiments but idk if a)pollen collected by bees would contain the medicinal/toxic compounds, b)if the honey does contain such medicinal/toxic tropane alkaloids (and if so, then what would the average concentration be?), and c) if I would have balls big enough to dive that deep into 4 days of tropane-induced hell
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I agree completely. Part of me, the morbid masochistic part wants to try it; the other, intelligent part is terrified at the very thought. Never tried tropanes, but the experiences sound both interesting and terrifying from my reading.
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my largest T. Pachanoi bloomed this week the honey bees have been all over the blooms .
if the bees made honey with just these flowers would be interesting .
on side note I was spritzed this cactus would bloom raised in a pot .
anyway the bees loved it.
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https://fb.watch/7IjKVeUebQ/
Let's get those unused spaces useful for our beloved pollinator friends....
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Can't seem to figure out how to add a YouTube link
Site won't let me??
But another interesting watch is-
Bee extinction:Why we're saving the wrong bees
Check it out
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But another interesting watch is-
Bee extinction:Why we're saving the wrong bees
Check it out
Thank you for this very interesting :)
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I keep bees and grow somniforums. The bees go nuts for the pollen but I can't say the honey from them is doing anything analgesic, dammit.
There's a lot of talk about bee extinction. I seriously doubt nature will permit it. My own 2centsworth is that all the noise about bees vanishing comes from two places. First - bigtime professional beekeepers who don't give a damn about bees unless they're making money. The shit they do to make zillions of bees to ship around the country is absolutely positively anti-natural. Then there's a great deal of noise when all this non-natural keeping ends up with a bunch of dead hives cutting into their profits. Blame and lawsuit somebody.
Second - amateur beekeepers, newbs, know nothings like me five years ago. Gots to tinker with those hives, ya' know? Tinker tinker tinker and the poor little critters don't stand a chance of getting established and surviving a winter. Then when we kill off our own hives we go looking for an explanation and there's tons of youtubes giving exotic reasons for why hives die off and only a few that point the finger where it belongs -> dummies who ignore the basics and try to skip ahead to the glory stuff. Seriously, new beekeepers should have to do an apprenticeship or something before being permitted to open their mouths about the hobby. Long before the internet or even the printing press people had this stuff figured out. It's all this free floating "information" about the science that's going to hurt the captive bee populations. I believe the wild bees will be fine if their habitats aren't paved over.
Rant ends.....
There are a small handful of very good educators out there, some on youtube. You'll have to decide for yourself who's in it for the profit and who's in it for the continuation of this very worthy hobby.