ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers
List archive
- From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
- To: Margaret Krome-Lukens <mskromelukens AT gmail.com>, ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
- Subject: Re: [ocba] nectar flow
- Date: Tue, 07 Apr 2015 10:10:55 -0400
Margaret,
This is a fundamental question, but one that I couldn't get a straight answer to either when I started beekeeping! So here it is: In our area, our main honey flow (the one that matters) is from tulip poplar trees. At my house, they start blooming on April 15th, or a couple of weeks earlier or later. Last year they didn't start until about May 1st. The year before that, it was closer to April 1st, if I remember correctly. If you were to take all of the flowers from a single large tulip poplar tree and spread them on the ground, it would be equivalent to acres of ground plants. Each flower produces a teaspoon of nectar, so much that the trees can drip with nectar. Other plants bloom at the same time as tulip poplar (for example, blackberries), but the overwhelming volume comes from tulip poplar. The NCSBA has a nice little plant blooming guide <here> that has rule-of-thumb bloom times for various plants. What the guide lacks is an indication of the volume of nectar from the plants, which will of course vary from area to area depending on the distribution of plants where you are. Okay, that's all nice, but how do we know the flow has started at OUR house? There are 2 reliable signs:
There is an article <here> that talks about some of these topics. Your experience may vary depending on your location, management practices and who knows what, but the info above applies to most of us. Randall On 4/7/2015 8:11 AM, Margaret Krome-Lukens wrote:
|
-
[ocba] nectar flow,
Margaret Krome-Lukens, 04/07/2015
- Re: [ocba] nectar flow, Marty Hanks, 04/07/2015
- Re: [ocba] nectar flow, Randall Austin, 04/07/2015
Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.