My neighbor's bees are slackers!

[Rosalind]

OK, I posted some time ago about maybe getting bees. I had a concern that if I got bees, my neighbor's bees might be duking it out for territory.

Apparently this concern was completely unfounded.

I just harvested my flax. I was growing the flax mainly for edible seeds, and it dutifully flowered a lovely shade of sky-blue and made the little balloon-looking things for seedpods. There were seedpods all over those things, and I gently unrooted them and carried them into the kitchen on an old piece of toweling folded up to catch any falling seeds.

Most of the seeds were never pollinated. Flax technically can self-pollinate, but does better with bees. My neighbor's bees were happy to pollinate the Creeping Charlie, but apparently flax flowers are just not yummy enough for them. So I guess there will be plenty of flowers available for any bees I start in the spring.

Any suggestions for bee types that like all kinds of flowers and work hard even in early spring and late fall? I've got plenty of early-blooming and late-blooming plants. Especially flax. That flax didn't stop blooming until at least November. Apparently the Carniolans are lazy and won't go out when it's, you know, only 60 degrees.

 

[Reinbeau]

One of the best self-sowers is borage, it's a great bee plant. All of the herbs are fantastic, too! (oregano, basil, thyme, alliums, all of them - they make lovely flavored honey off of them, too!) In the early spring around here the trees are the biggest source of nectar and pollen, which can be a problem in springs like what we had this year. Rain and cold will keep the bees from foraging in the trees. I have no idea how appealing flax is, from your experience I'd say not very, unfortunately.

I've also let my whole back yard be a huge clover patch, they love the white clover flowers, there's dandelions galore out there too. The dandies are great early season blossoms, although their pollen isn't a good, complete food for the bees.

Get bees, you won't regret it!

 

[journey11]

I've also let my whole back yard be a huge clover patch

I don't think I could stop mine from being a clover patch! Yes, the bees certainly aren't complaining.

I've never grown flax, but I wonder if it's like corn, where you have to plant lots of it close together to get good pollination.

 

[Rosalind]

Well, the thing is, I did that. I sowed pretty heavily, thinking I might get a 50% or so germination rate, and it ALL came up. I had a gorgeous sea of green grassy stuff speckled with bright blue flowers that waved in every breeze. I thought, wow, if I were farming for actual money in New England, I'd grow flax for sure! How easy is this! What a fabulous wildflower-meadow this would make!

Pah. I'd have to be growing for fiber, cause I sure ain't got no seeds worth a darn. I mean, I can rett the flax and make a hanky's worth of linen, sure, but I really wanted the seeds.

Maybe it self-sowed. Somehow.

So far for bee plants, I have a few hellebores with plans to get more, witch hazels (only a couple, I will order more), Amelanchiers (also more on order, love them), borage (self-sowed and keeps trying to come up even in the cold), basil, a zillion marjoram plants that escaped the herb bed, lots of sage and Salvia spp. relatives, mint that flowers through November, Alpine & regular strawberries, lingonberries that bloom all through early winter and start again in early spring, two big forsythia hedges, two 30' lilac hedges, blueberries, plenty dandelions and violets growing wild, the 60x60' veggie garden, 30 fruit trees, about 15 cultivated roses and a vast assortment of wild eglantine hedges, an 80' raspberry hedge, blackberries, gooseberries, some clover plantings (they need to fill in a bit more), a big old golden chain tree, and behind us is conservation land. Also a bunch of spring bulbs--don't ask me how many, just a bunch, they came with the house.

I am trying to talk DH into a pussywillow hedge next to a particularly ugly retaining wall that's getting smothered in weeds, but he isn't having any of it. I hate to think of anyone, especially bees, going hungry.

 

[Reinbeau]

Oh, pussywillows are a very important early season pollen source, that's a great choice! I think you've got your bases covered for the bees!