Where's the honey

[WJensen]

Here we are in the middle of a flow, but there's no honey. White clovers and dandelions have been in bloom since the middle of April, privet and sumac is and raspberry are in bloom now. Indeed, everything is in bloom, but I don't see honey bees on any of the flowers one usually associates with honey. The wife is beginning to ask when do we get some. She sees me feeding, and after a couple years she wants something in return for all that sugar. I live in the Raleigh area of NC, and our season is notoriously short. I am new here, but some of the locals say that it is over by the end of May, others mid June.

Any thoughts?

[Tim B]

You are right....you have clover, vetch, poplar, blackberry and everything else blooming but right now you are also getting rain nearly every day. Rain is the enemy of the honey flow once the blooms are out.

[paintingpreacher]

It seems like things have to be just right in my area. Last year it was too dry. This year we have tons of clover blooming but it is raining every other day. Between the rain and too many swarms honey may be hard to come by again this year.

[clgs]

How long does it need to go without rain for the bees to be able to get nectar?

[NasalSponge]

Depends on the plant but I read that the second dry day the necter is back.

[WJensen]

Well, it appears that the next 4 days should see no rain, and temperatures in the mid 80s. Last year the rains totally stopped after mid May, and things dried up rapidly due to day time highs in the mid 90s. Maybe this year. I am attempting to be prepared just in case. I don't want to be inundated with honey mind you, but it would be nice to have a few jars around to give away to friends and family, and have a few for ourselves, and have enough to keep the bees going through the long dearth of summer.

Well, enough of my venting.

[Michael Bush]

The "flow" isn't just when things are blooming. It's when the bees have finished the spring build up and have decided to stock it away for the winter. In other words, the flow is when the bees make up their mind to make honey instead of bees.

[thomas]

Howdy all i agree with Mr. Bush on this i have been doing splits from hives that are full of bees and then dealing with swarms. I have a super that is capped over except around the bottom of the comb which is not capped and the hive swarmed on me but i got lucky and caught them. I want to gather this one super but i do not know if it is ready to take off i think all of the comb should be capped but they are busy now working in the second super and i have another hive i caught when they swarmed even thou they broke the tree limb but i have a super on them and they are filling it as well as the brood chamber but for now i am letting them raise young bees so i can split them again but i would like to know if the one super can be pulled so they won't have alot of room to keep warm. i do not even see my girls touching the blackberries blooms they seem to be working something else and basswood has not bloomed yet.

thomas

[WJensen]

Thank you Mr. Bush for clarifying. You are, of course, correct, and I misspoke. What I meant to say was that we have a very short time when things are blooming, maybe a month or so. If the bees can not get a surplus of nectar during that time, no honey for us. After that, the weather changes and no more nectar. The "fall flow" often doesn't occur here.

Interestingly, the "flow" can occur in as little as a week, when the bees will fill up a super or two in just a few days. Just depends on the weather.

They say all beekeeping is local. I was talking to a beek in Chapel Hill, and they are having a great year with Tulip Poplar. Tulip Poplar is local tree, but I am not aware of any around here. She noted that they are collecting a lot of tulip poplar, but that the one outside the office where we were discussing had no bees on working it. Go figure. Blackberry is also blooming, and grows wild all over the place. The problem, I think, is suburban development in my area, where everyone is trying to grow monocultures of grass, but who knows. I will go out tomorrow and see if they are making progress, now that the rains have stopped for a few days.

Statistically, North Carolina average harvest is 50 lbs per hive. But a lot of that is in canola and such. That must mean people mostly do it mostly for love of bees.:)

[USCBeeMan]

Old timers are telling me that the nectar flow can sometimes be extended much later into the summer when we have long periods of spring rains. Seems that here in TN a few years ago we had the same type of rainy sprint and the flow lasted until late July, early August.

Perhaps we will be blessed with a longer nectar flow. Colonies will swarm during a nectar flow if they don't have enought space to move the incoming nectar to other comb for capping as it "dried out". Its suppose to be in the middle of the nectar flow here in my area of TN. But I have had very few flowers come up yet that come up from seed. My current flowers that are blooming are all perinials.

I live in town so I would assume that my nectar flow would be longer than someone living in the country as we have more flowers blooming longer and later than in the country.

Crape myrtles will not start blooming for another 3 or 4 weeks and the bees really work them over. That's why I always cut off the seed pods on my myrtles so that I get a second large bloom. Those of you that live in areas (like FL) that have a very long growing season could probably get a 3rd bloom of crape myrtles for their bees.

[WJensen]

USCBeeMan,

I can only hope that you are correct about the length of the nectar season. But it has been an odd year in the garden so far too, so maybe I just need to be more patient.

Regards
Wade

[tecumseh]

wjensen writes:
She noted that they are collecting a lot of tulip poplar, but that the one outside the office where we were discussing had no bees on working it. Go figure. Blackberry is also blooming, and grows wild all over the place.

tecumseh:
it doesn't even require blooming plants to make for a honey flow (cotton is a good example where a lot of the nectar secretion are external to the flower). however seeing no bees on a particular kind of plant doesn't necessarily mean it is not a portion of a season's flow. often times blooming plants only excrete nectar in a very limited time slot.... so unless you were watching a particular plant 24-7 you might never really know that indeed the bee work a particular bloom.