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North Alabama Beekeeping questions

5K views 16 replies 7 participants last post by  rhaldridge 
#1 ·
A quick couple of questions. I noticed a lot of very bright yellow pollen going into the hive this morning. About 2 out of every 5 going into the hive. Is this golden rod pollen? Do we have golden rod pollen in our area. ( I Live in Decatur) Also when should I start putting entrance reducers on and put the boards under my screened bottom boards? Thanks for any help. Hoss
 
#2 ·
yep, the goldenrod has just started up here in the last week or so. if you are close to the river you may be seeing a lot of off-white pollen coming in too, i believe that's jasmine.

i put my entrance reducers on about when the first frost hits.

my bottom boards are solid, but some of the folks that use them this far south leave them open, maybe they will chime in.

i do like to put a half inch of pink foam between the inner and outer covers to prevent condensation on the 'ceiling' of the hive, again about when the first frost hits.

welcome to the forum hoss.
 
#7 ·
Squarepeg Thanks for your help. Where do you get the pink foam? Hoss
home depot, bought a 4 x 8 sheet and cut it to size. it raises the top cover just a bit but it wasn't a problem. the other thing i do is put a notch in the front and back of the inner cover and put window screen on it to provide some ventilation. the bees will sometime propolize this and later unproprolize it depending on what they want.

the main thing is you want to prevent the humidity given off by the cluster from condensing on the ceiling of the hive and dripping back down on the bees. the ice cold water dripping down can kill them.

by insulating the top and allowing excess moisture to escape through the vents this is avoided.
 
#8 ·
Well, goldenrod pollen is orange not light yellow. We have big loads of yellow coming in now, and I just discovered the source...Plantain. I was wondering what it was...almost all loads coming in are this same yellow color. Aster...almost the same color hasn't started yet. Then I saw a bee on plantain working on anthers the same yellow color, and huge loads on her legs of the same yellow.

So, I don't believe you are seeing goldenrod. Take a walk and figure it out, and let us know.
 
#13 ·
squarepeg (or any other deep south beekeeper), do you and/or your customers like your goldenrod honey? I keep hearing mixed opinions on the flavor of its honey. Most of the very positive opinions have come from folks in the northern states, but down here near Montgomery they leave it for the bees to munch on during the winter. However in my location, we have acres of it growing near the river whereas most folks in my area have very little who live near the city. I'm going to pull honey after the flow, leaving the ladies enough for winter (two mediums), but I was interested in other Alabama beekeepers' opinions of the taste of this type of honey.
 
#14 ·
i tried extracting some a couple of years ago. i personally didn't think it tasted as good as the earlier honey that i got. but the real draw back was that it crystalized in just a week or two after i extracted it, and i had some customers return theirs for a refund. i don't know if it was the goldenrod nectar that caused it to crystalize or something else in it, but i decided to stop harvesting after the goldenrod started coming in and leave the remaining honey for overwintering. i also decided to stop feeding syrup unless absolutely necessary.
 
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