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Forage for Honey Bees

Honey bees forage for nectar from many sources and the wise beekeeper will note what plants flower in his area and the timings of this flowering.

Some beekeepers are able to directly influence the crops that the bees forage on by arranging for particular varieties of crop to be sown. Others will move their bees from place to place to take advantage of different crops or different dates of sowing of the same crop.

In years gone by many beekeeping books allotted whole sections to elaborate the precise way that crops could be sown by the beekeeper on his own land, to the advantage of gaining larger honey crops. The balance has shifted with most crops now grown by farmers and growers, with the beekeeper concentrating more on the actual bee husbandry.

This rest of this page and the menu above left are a collection of jottings that will become more structured as time permits.

All forage now comes in shorter, more violent, bursts... Why?

Tubingen Mix... sowing rate 7kg of seed per hectare

Phacelia... Sown at 1kg per hectare

Persian Clover

Increase Hawthorn, Sycamore and Holly in hedgerows.

Encourage Rabbits

If much Hawthorn is available... put supers on in March, it does not yield strongly every year, but it is worthwhile when it does.

Written... Spring 2001, Revised... 21 March 2002, Upgraded... 21 April 2006,