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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on May 7, 2013 0:04:49 GMT -5
My brother is a beekeeper. His hives are located outside of Colorado City, Arizona. He has the opportunity this summer to plant a 15 acre field into forage. He called me wondering about growing Broccoli Raab. Do y'all think that it would become a noxious weed if he planted it and allowed it to go to seed? Is it really long blooming like the rumors he heard about it? We have read Wikipedia's Northern American nectar sources for honey bees. Do you have recommendations about other crops that he might plant to provide pollen and/or nectar for his bees? He has several hundred hives. We talked about squash, radishes, and successive crops of corn. It would be nice if the crop could be harvested in some way to provide an income in addition to feeding the bees. But he is not a farmer. |
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Post by 12540dumont on May 7, 2013 0:53:52 GMT -5
Wait! herbs! The blooms are beloved by bees. I have more bees working my herbs than my citrus trees! My borage has a bee every few inches. The big deal is planning for seasons.
July, Aug will be the hard time, as it's so hot. Look for natives that will take the heat.
Don't forget simple things like clover! Very bee friendly, improves the soil, etc. Some like red clover, will come back for 3 years.
I vote for buckwheat!
Raab if he can get it in early enough will last for several weeks, but won't feed the bees all summer.
Can you tell us if he has irrigation?
Colorado City...tough crowd.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on May 7, 2013 1:29:25 GMT -5
Colorado City...tough crowd. Outside the city is OK for outsiders... I'll get more details. Alfalfa is a natural choice, but the peer pressure would be too great: Alfalfa has to be harvested just as the flowers are starting to bloom, which of course defeats the purpose of growing forage crops. That'd be a cool $350 per acre which can be measured. The improved health or honey flow of the apiary from additional forage is not something that is readily calculated. Herbs: Hmmm. They are so far out of my experience. Herbs are something that I buy at the store, not something that I would grow in a garden.  We talked about wildflowers. He'd need around 150 pounds of seed. It seems to me like the easiest system to maintain: Mow it in the fall. Seed is very pricey to get started. Two years ago I planted a "Good Bug Blend". It contained herbs, radish, cilantro, clovers, wildflowers, etc. I suppose I could replant it with the intention of harvesting seed. He wasn't much enamored with the idea of row-cropping individual species and harvesting seed for market. |
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Post by MikeH on May 7, 2013 6:03:33 GMT -5
If he's not looking to harvest a cash crop, then he can design for all season forage using perennials. Using natives would be good since they have deep root systems once established that make them drought resistant. Prairie Moon has a search tool that allows you to select by month - www.prairiemoon.com/choosing.php?fclassid=1. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center has an even better search tool - www.wildflower.org/plants/I was able to come up with this for north eastern North America -  Our experience with establishing these kinds of plants is that what's already growing there is a big factor in success. Until they get established, these plants have a tough time competing. Establishing them is the nut to crack. We've cracked it but only on a small scale. We seed into flats, transplant into larger pots, and let the roots bulk up for a season or two before planting out. The initial plant gets bigger and bigger over time. In the fall, we'll slice off the side of a clump of something that's well established and start a new patch going elsewhere. Our first attempt was direct seeding but that failed because the weeds grew faster and finally overcame the wildflowers. There's some info here - www.wildflowerfarm.com/index.php?p=page&page_id=MSM but I can't speak to its being first hand or cut-and-paste knowledge. These folks look a good place to start - www.americanmeadows.com/wildflower-seeds/southwest |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on May 7, 2013 9:05:56 GMT -5
MikeH: Thanks. Definitely seems better to try to make a long-term forage rather than focusing on a single year.
I did an image search for "honey bee, flower" and made a count of each type of flower by genus/tribe (where possible). I recognize that such a search may say more about people and what they like to take photos of than it says about honey bees and their preferred forage. 60% of the photos were from the Asteraceae. There were lots of yellow petaled composites, I suppose Coreopsis which accounted for about half of the composite photos. Some composite families were much more well represented than others. For example marigolds, dahlias, and daisies were uncommon. Asters were particularly common. Cone flowers were common.
Clovers were to be expected to show up.
The flower that surprised me the most were crocus. I guess that makes sense because it is an early spring flower. But no photos of bees in tulip flowers. I suppose the pollen and nectar are not preferred.
Goldenrod is enshrined in the mythology as a great forage crop for honeybees, but you wouldn't know it based on the photos I reviewed. It seems like asters would be a better choice for late season pollen.
Mallows, brassicas, chives, and pussy willow made a decent showing.
It was interesting to notice that so few Apiaceae showed up. But now that I think about it, those tend to attract native bees, and wasps but not honeybees.
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Post by cletus on May 7, 2013 9:53:31 GMT -5
Lots of things in the Menthae, Sedums, but they might be harder to establish on a larger scale. I'm not sure but maybe where he is in AZ there might be some good candidate fast growing legume trees or bushes worth looking into. If Rosemary grows there, it makes a good shelterbelt hedge protecting the hives from cold winds. I planted some of Jim's Hybrid Mints last year, and some like Pear Mint appear to be even better nectar sources than common mints. Pear mint grows a bit taller up to around 25 inches and blooms like crazy very late into the season, tolerating some frost. Excellent nectar source that one and its taller, gnarled architecture seems to allow to contain more blooms in 3d space. Vigorous and beautiful and does indeed smell a bit of pear.
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Post by MikeH on May 7, 2013 10:54:20 GMT -5
Our crocuses always host a feeding frenzy of honeybees and wild bees but our tulips rarely get much attention. I suspect that's because crocuses are about the first forage available. They're even ahead of pussywillows. Our tulips are just now beginning to open but the current bee magnet is our Nanking cherries. We see few honeybees on our coreopsis and none on our coneflowers (although the butterflies love coneflowers) but lots on our sunflowers & heliopsis. Wild asters flower at the same time here as goldenrod but goldenrod is much the preferred flower by our bees. Perhaps if the wild asters were more dominant than the goldenrod it would be the preferred of the two.
It seems to me that having as much diversity from first forage to last forage is a good idea. I've seen years where there were hardly any asters and other years when we had a sea of purple. Some years we have purple loosestrife and other years we don't. I'm sure there's a pattern but I'm too blind to see it.
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