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Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Eugene Monaco" <efmonaco@comcast.net>
  • To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] Honneybeels and Phenology
  • Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 15:41:07 -0400

One of the benefits of keeping bees is what you learn about flowering plants
and maybe the accompanying phenology. I'd like to see more discussion of
the latter. Mollison always says to observe nature for patterns of design
and the knowing of what to do, which is hard to do when you're not out it in
enough.
Spring is just unfolding here in the Tennessee valley. The daffodils are
blooming as are the maples. The pussy willows are out and the bees are
gathering the pollen from all of them. I've watched the bees come back to
the hive with yellow pollen in their pollen sacs and also a bright red
pollen, which I think is coming from some of the daffodils with red
interiors. There are also crocuses with purple flowers. The conifers
haven't opened up yet but when the do there will be yellow pollen all over
everything outside.
I was reading an article in Bee Culture that advised of a relationship that
I had never thought of before, even though I'm sure many of you have; and
that is that the pollen "flow" comes before the nectar flow, which I gather
is what the locals call the honey flow. I know that the plants don't
produce honey so what else could it mean?
The locals said to make sure you have your bee population up (as high as
80,000) by the time the "honey flow" starts, which they say is April 15
around here, also the last day of potential frost. I know that global
warming and climate change will blow this one around, but for the sake of
discussion bear with me.
Well the honey flow doesn't really start on April 15th, it's underway right
now, but I suppose it's on a much smaller scale so as to consider it
insignificant compared to what's yet to come.
Anyhow, the article was saying essentially that in order to have the bee
population up for the honey flow, you have to have it up sooner than that
for the pollen flow, which is a number of weeks earlier. The pollen has the
protein in it that makes larvae and bees. Makes sense.
Well I scoured the web for information on tables of pollen counts to try to
find the historical peak and so far I'm coming up with squat. Does anybody
have a background in this or can find where such data is available.
Otherwise, I'm back to talking to the Keepers again (they're getting tired
of me.)
BTW, what the hell are French Queens? Are they something like the Drag
Queens of Bellaire?


Gene Monaco
Knoxville, TN






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