The Honey Flow Is Winding Down

The honey flow is winding down

I hope you had or are anticipating a good honey harvest. Despite the rainy weather, my bees did well, but now in my area the nectar flow is ending. How can I tell? The scout bees are nosing around any used frames or boxes. Practical application: beware of starting robbing. Keep frames covered when you remove them from the hive. Open hives for only short periods of time. If you have weaker colonies, consider purchasing or making (anti)robbing screens. It is far better to avoid robbing than to try to stop it once it starts. If you are feeding sugar syrup to any colonies or nucs, be careful not to drip any syrup outside of the hive.

The bees are also desperate for pollen. My bees are collecting pollen from Timothy-grass (Phleumpretense; see my website for photo) and plantain (Plantagospp; the weed not the banana). Both of these plants are wind pollinated. A 2008 paper(1) demonstrated that plantain pollenshave low nutritional value for honey bees. This paper further indicated that bees collect plantain pollen when sources of nutritive pollen were not available. Thus, collection of plantain pollen is an indicator that high quality protein is not presently available in my area. I could not find data on the nutritional value of Timothy-grass pollen, but my guess is that this grass pollen also provides little of value to honey bees. The other plant that bees frequent when there is a lack of pollen is sweet corn pollen (Maize). Corn pollen is very low in the essential amino acidhistidine (2), meaning that corn pollen alone can not support brood rearing. Additionally, most field corn is treated with neonicotinoidinsecticides, so that insecticide is also in the pollen your bees are taking home to feed their larvae. Practical application: the amount of pollen that you find in your hives may not indicate adequate nutrition. Without high quality protein, egg laying and brood rearing will decrease. High quality protein is also important for the sexual maturity of queens and drones. If you have a colony (such as a nuc) where you want the queen to keep laying,or if your colony is raising a Supersedure or swarm queen, I highly recommend feeding pollen or pollen substitute.

Vince Aloyo

Master Beekeeper

(1)The importance of plantain (Plantago spp.) as a supplementary pollen source in the diet of honey bees

Bernardo Sabugosa-Madeiraab, Helena Ribeiroab, MárioCunhaacIldaAbreub

Journal of Apicultural Research 47:1, 77-81

To link to this article:

(2)Evaluation of the nutritive value of maize for honey bees

Nicole Höcherl, Reinhold Siede, Ingrid Illies, Heike Gätschenberger, JürgenTautz

Journal of Insect Physiology 58 (2012) 278–285