Thinking about moving a few hives into an 80 Acre Meadow of blooming Red Clover, However dont know how HoneyBees and Red Clover mix, Would someone advise whether this would be feasable or not. Thanks for any Help Lou
Flowering: Five million flowers per hectare; 200 million florets per 0.4 ha. On average a honeybee visits 800 red clover flowers per hour (New Zealand).
Hives per hectare: 3 to 7; 3 to 15; two colonies per 0.4 ha (USA).
Nectar production: Requires several days of over 22°C before flowers begin to yield nectar. Volume ranged from 40 to 44 µL per inflorescence.
Honey production: 100 to 200 kg/ha. Honey is water white, very sweet, no flavour and granulates within two months of extraction. Pollen can be abundant and colour is brown.
Review of bee pollination benefits - red clover:
77 to 89 per cent of the flowers pollinated by honeybees (New Zealand).
70 to 80 per cent increase in seed production within 500 m of apiary.
24 to 82 per cent (average 62 per cent) of flowers were pollinated by honeybees.
72.5 per cent increase in seed production with native bees and honeybees.
For variety Redquin, increased yields of 42 per cent were obtained (NSW).
Red clover flowers are deep and honeybees have trouble gathering nectar (Diploid and tetraploid varieties differ in length of corolla - tetraploid varieties generally have longer corollas).
Red clover pollen collection increased by 5.2 times following sugar syrup feeding to beehives.
50 per cent reduction in seed yield when beehives were 122 to 183 m from the crop. Seed yield was negligible at 640 m (USA).
Honeybee pollination gave an advantage of 37 kg/ha of seed.
Red clover yields declined when apiaries were more than 0.8 km distant. http://www.agric.wa.gov.au/programs/dairy/apiculture/cropspolln.htm#red
Thanks to all for Info
Decided to place 2 hives at pond near center of Red Clover and see what happens. Again thanks Lou
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