![]() Take note of these and incorporate them into your own landscape for next season. After speaking with other beekeepers in your state, you just might discover some new-to-you plant varieties, which performed surprisingly well for them. Perhaps more than ever, it’s up to beekeepers to actively provide their bees with long-term nectar sources. I know when they’re going to bloom almost to the day, and things are definitely earlier now.” “I’ve got 40 trees on my lot, and probably 38 of them are honey plants. Thanks to some simple record-keeping, Flottum has proof that local bloom times have shifted. Were certain months especially difficult on other beekeepers in your neck of the woods, and, if so, how did they manage?Īlso, if you haven’t already begun one, now’s the time to start a beekeeping journal or notebook.How have they performed over the last 5 to 10 years?.Which plants, historically, have been the biggest contributors to the nectar flow near you?.You can also ask your local or state university for area phenology charts or consult the USA National Phenology Network online. As you make new contacts, compare notes about changes they’ve observed in local floral bloom times and bloom duration. One of the best ways to cope is to use your winter downtime to connect with fellow beekeepers in your area via social media and your state beekeepers’ association. Read more: At Wayward Brewing, beekeeping and permaculture direct beer brewing. “When things are done earlier and you have a big population, you’re either going to have to take less or feed earlier in the fall.” “My asters and goldenrod are done about a week to 10 days earlier than they were 10 or 20 years ago,” Flottum says. “If blooms used to overlap, you would get a much stronger honey flow, than if blooms, you have to wait a week, and then something else blooms.”īlooming changes toward the end of the season are also affecting beekeeper behavior. “Both of those things are affecting when the bloom date is and whether blooming will overlap,” he says. ![]() Will you have a large enough bee population built up in time to take advantage of the earlier nectar flow?Īnd what about interruptions between flower sets? While some plant bloom cycles are triggered by a certain combination of day length and temperature, others react only to day length. Let’s say you put extra supers on the hive sooner than usual in order to coincide with those earlier bloom times. Or you may not be able to do things earlier.” “So, you may have to do some things earlier than you normally would. “If your dandelion have changed, then other things are going to change,” Flottum says. ![]() Flottum, a beekeeper and former editor of Bee Culture Magazine, co-hosts the “Beekeeping Today” podcast and is the author of Common Sense Natural Beekeeping. “There is ‘before dandelions’ and ‘after dandelions,’” he says. Taken together, all of these changes have made managing honeybee colonies that much trickier but, fortunately, not impossible.įor his part, Kim Flottum has long used dandelion bloom times to delineate his beekeeping year. As a result, interruptions in the nectar flow have become more common. What’s more, bloom duration and the overlapping of blooming times for different flower varieties aren’t as reliable either. In particular, warming temperatures and changing weather patterns have caused some important nectar sources such as dandelions-and many types of trees-to begin blooming sooner. Beekeeping isn’t quite as by-the-calendar as it once was.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |