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White "Dutch" clover

9K views 18 replies 13 participants last post by  BILLY BOB 
#1 ·
My bees are living amongst much white clover. Has been in full bloom for some time now. I have found only 1 (ONE) bee on the clover. We are having warm weather and plenty rain. ?? What conditions are necessary for bees to utalise {spelling} Make use of, white clover??
Whenever I check they are making a bee line for a big swamp. I don't see much out there but aparently they do as they are making honey.
Tommorow is "bee day" so I will see what they have acompished while I was gone fishin last week.
 
#2 ·
Same here in WV. Sumac is just finished here and they have been working it hard. As long as they are bringing it in I'm not going to complain. They will work the clover, as it will still be blooming when everything else has played out. I've noticed it sits low on the priority list if you are a bee. Right there with alfalfa. They hit it hard when there is little else, but given a choice I haven't seen much action.
 
#4 ·
Can't recall were I seen it , But read somewhere that a bee don't get much out of clover when it is in full bloom,
when it look's like to use that it's almost dried up is when a bee work's it.
I have bees on a large dutch clover pasture & i was going to watch it close to see if it hold's true.>>>>mark
 
#7 ·
Anytime the bees are concentrating on other plants than clover, it means good honey days. They pick the most advantagous plants. When they get down to sucking "brown Clover", you know the honey days are about over.

[This message has been edited by BjornBee (edited July 09, 2003).]
 
#8 ·
I don't know what the weather is like where you are, but here bees require days that don't pour down rain all day! Maybe there is a tree blooming somewhere. I've read somewhere that a large percentage of honey comes from trees, which makes sense if you consider trees have a larger surface area than flat ground. (Except in Kansas.)
 
#9 ·
Honeyman;
I like the reference to your bees as "my girls". Don't walk in the clover barefoot. Used to be good advice. This year no problem. I will watch the clover and post if "my girls" start to congrigate there.

------------------
Erwin
 
#10 ·
Question: I am not very familliar with english names for flowers and plants, because they are so much different than their french name, so what do you call "Dutch Clover" ? Is it the same as white clover ? I know what clover is (trefle in french ...), but the Dutch one is new to my ears

Hugo
Alma, Quebec
 
#15 ·
It's not uncommon for bees to ignore one source in preference for another that they consider better. The bees at my house were happily working several acres of sweet clover until a few weeks ago when one day there simply wasn't a single bee on the clover where there had previously been hundreds. I noticed the bees were flying over the field towards a nearby woods. With closer investigation I found the source, the basswood had started to bloom.
 
#17 ·
Bees here are working the white clover quite a bit. Also see them on our hostas early in the morning (I never realized honey bees cared about hosta blooms) and on our thyme all day. Not sure what else is in bloom around here right now that bees like. I think I had heard before that bees will work some plants at different times of the day, so maybe we just look at the plants either at the right or wrong time of the day to see them working. Anybody else heard that?
 
#18 ·
My girls started working th white clover about a week ago when the basswood was about over. At first only in the morning from when it got warm enough to fly till about 1000 hrs. Now they are in the clover all day. Like Mark mentioned "after it is partly turned brown.
Strange little critters : them bees.
 
G
#19 ·
I've found that "my girls" (I like that too!) will work clover if just about nothing else is in bloom. Our red clover comes in first in late May early April and gets worked over hard. The white clover comes in about a week later and you can walk out to the yard and check the clover every day to see if somthing else has come in yet. One day they will be tearing into it. Then they won't touch it for 2 weeks, then work it again for a few days, then off to somthing else. When ever they arn't working the clover somthing else is blooming. The main flow is over here and they are working clover very hard. Clover makes good honey, but I've read that it's hard for the bees to work due to the fact that the blooms are deep. If you watch a bee working clover they are having to shove ther head as deep into the bloom as possable to get to the nector.

White clover isn't native to N. America. It was brought over as ground cover and a pasture grass. Very good for cows! It puts alot of weight on them...Horses too. The red clover, and others were brought over of the same thing but horses don't care for it. Unless it is cut and bailed. Cows....love it fresh off the "vine" or bailed.

Billy Bob
 
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