Pics at the end !
The main honey flow in Louisiana usually ends somewhere during mid summer. After this time the main honey crop is extracted and this is truly when you find out how the bees performed. The weather plays a major part in this intricate dance between the bees and the flowers. There is no escaping Mother Nature. This year was average at best for honey production and for a lot of beekeepers it was way below average. In Louisiana we only had two real days of winter. The temps dropped into the 20’s and then after those two days we moved right back into mild temps. Two days of winter is no where near enough to get the chill hours needed to set up plants to bloom in the spring. Most people do not know this, but lots of plants need a certain amount of hours of cold weather to trigger them to bloom. Privet hedge which is a member of the ligustrum family is a perfect example for this. This plant, along with its kissing cousin the ligustrum in our yards, did not bloom this year in most parts of Louisiana. This was very significant because the bees use the nectar to build up for the main honey flow. The more bees you have to go get the nectar the better your honey crop will be. Another result of the mild winter temps were the early blooming of the tallow trees which is our main nectar producer. The bees did not build up very much in the spring since the privet did not bloom, and then the tallow trees bloomed two weeks early and our bee populations were low so a average to poor honey crop was made. On top of this we had large amounts of rain fall in some areas which washes the nectar from the blooms which reduces the amount of honey made and also keeps the bees in the hive. No fly, no honey! This is why all true bee keepers are serious weather watchers. As the summer marches on and we move into fall the bees collect nectar everyday all day but the pickings are much slimmer. They have to hit the wildflowers and ornamental plants to keep the nectar coming in so the hive can build some honey stores to make it through the winter. As September goes into October, the golden rod plant produces its beautiful yellow flowers which is a major score for the bees. This plant produces abundant nectar, but the honey from this is strong in taste and granulates much quicker than tallow honey. This is a great plant for bees to get some much needed nectar as the year progresses to winter. The bees must still be checked before it gets too cold as sometimes they still don’t have enough honey to get them through winter and you must feed them.
By now you should have noted that this beekeeping pursuit is just like any type farming, a crap shoot. There are always winners and losers, but this doesn’t matter as the dance must always carry on. I’ve included a few pictures of the bee yard, some of the boxes being brought in for extraction, feeding the bees with a home made feeder, and a few pics from Connecticut and the Hammond research station of bees foraging on ornamental plants
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The main honey flow in Louisiana usually ends somewhere during mid summer. After this time the main honey crop is extracted and this is truly when you find out how the bees performed. The weather plays a major part in this intricate dance between the bees and the flowers. There is no escaping Mother Nature. This year was average at best for honey production and for a lot of beekeepers it was way below average. In Louisiana we only had two real days of winter. The temps dropped into the 20’s and then after those two days we moved right back into mild temps. Two days of winter is no where near enough to get the chill hours needed to set up plants to bloom in the spring. Most people do not know this, but lots of plants need a certain amount of hours of cold weather to trigger them to bloom. Privet hedge which is a member of the ligustrum family is a perfect example for this. This plant, along with its kissing cousin the ligustrum in our yards, did not bloom this year in most parts of Louisiana. This was very significant because the bees use the nectar to build up for the main honey flow. The more bees you have to go get the nectar the better your honey crop will be. Another result of the mild winter temps were the early blooming of the tallow trees which is our main nectar producer. The bees did not build up very much in the spring since the privet did not bloom, and then the tallow trees bloomed two weeks early and our bee populations were low so a average to poor honey crop was made. On top of this we had large amounts of rain fall in some areas which washes the nectar from the blooms which reduces the amount of honey made and also keeps the bees in the hive. No fly, no honey! This is why all true bee keepers are serious weather watchers. As the summer marches on and we move into fall the bees collect nectar everyday all day but the pickings are much slimmer. They have to hit the wildflowers and ornamental plants to keep the nectar coming in so the hive can build some honey stores to make it through the winter. As September goes into October, the golden rod plant produces its beautiful yellow flowers which is a major score for the bees. This plant produces abundant nectar, but the honey from this is strong in taste and granulates much quicker than tallow honey. This is a great plant for bees to get some much needed nectar as the year progresses to winter. The bees must still be checked before it gets too cold as sometimes they still don’t have enough honey to get them through winter and you must feed them.
By now you should have noted that this beekeeping pursuit is just like any type farming, a crap shoot. There are always winners and losers, but this doesn’t matter as the dance must always carry on. I’ve included a few pictures of the bee yard, some of the boxes being brought in for extraction, feeding the bees with a home made feeder, and a few pics from Connecticut and the Hammond research station of bees foraging on ornamental plants
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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