Hello all,
I am in the very beginning stages of my (hopefully long) beekeeping journey. My wife and I own approx 20 acres in Burnet County, TX. We started with our first nuc in May and so far we're loving all the learning taking place. We hope to add an additional 2-3 hives per year until we reach the threshold for Ag exemption (in Burnet county they've told us that equals about 10-12 hives.)
We've been working the land for approx 6 months. This has mainly consisted of fence building, planting a few Oak seedlings that were given to me and clearing about 90% of the prickly pear to make the land livable.
I've been trying to leave alone any native plants that the bees may like. I have 4 adolescent Mesquites, some sort of native plum or persimmon (not sure) and a few wild flowers. There's currently cattle on the land that the previous owner leases back from us to maintain the Ag exemption.
My question is this: what sort of native, drought tolerant, cold hardy plants should I be looking to plant to help the bees out? I've been searching for which wildflowers I might seed (Indian blanket, horsemint, bluebonnets, vetch, clover, chicory, etc...) and thinking about a few desert willow, texas sage, bottlebrush, etc. Does this sound adequate?
I eventually would like to have a large majority of what 10-12 hives will need on my property. I realize I can't have it all but would like to do most of it.
Within a year or two we plan to have a house built out there and be able to irrigate several fruit trees and a garden but for now I would love to get a few plants going.
Thanks for any help/suggestions. Love the forum!!
I am in the very beginning stages of my (hopefully long) beekeeping journey. My wife and I own approx 20 acres in Burnet County, TX. We started with our first nuc in May and so far we're loving all the learning taking place. We hope to add an additional 2-3 hives per year until we reach the threshold for Ag exemption (in Burnet county they've told us that equals about 10-12 hives.)
We've been working the land for approx 6 months. This has mainly consisted of fence building, planting a few Oak seedlings that were given to me and clearing about 90% of the prickly pear to make the land livable.
I've been trying to leave alone any native plants that the bees may like. I have 4 adolescent Mesquites, some sort of native plum or persimmon (not sure) and a few wild flowers. There's currently cattle on the land that the previous owner leases back from us to maintain the Ag exemption.
My question is this: what sort of native, drought tolerant, cold hardy plants should I be looking to plant to help the bees out? I've been searching for which wildflowers I might seed (Indian blanket, horsemint, bluebonnets, vetch, clover, chicory, etc...) and thinking about a few desert willow, texas sage, bottlebrush, etc. Does this sound adequate?
I eventually would like to have a large majority of what 10-12 hives will need on my property. I realize I can't have it all but would like to do most of it.
Within a year or two we plan to have a house built out there and be able to irrigate several fruit trees and a garden but for now I would love to get a few plants going.
Thanks for any help/suggestions. Love the forum!!