Tag Archive for: Garden Blossoms

Deciphering the Language of Pollen Colors

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For beekeepers, a captivating sight unfolds within the hive: a vibrant tapestry of pollen pellets, each boasting a distinct color. These colorful balls, diligently carried by returning foragers, tell a fascinating story – a story of the bees’ journey and the blooming flowers they encountered.

Just like a painter’s palette, the colors of pollen reveal the flowers the bees have chosen to visit. In some cases, the connection is readily apparent. When bright yellow pollen pellets arrive amidst a landscape awash with blooming wild mustard, the source is evident.

However, the bee world is not always so straightforward. Mysterious colors can intrigue even the most experienced beekeeper. Pollen, usually known for its yellow and white hues, can also surprise us with vibrant reds, greens, blues, oranges, grays, and even purples.

This diversity is especially noticeable in urban and suburban hives where bees have access to a wider variety of gardens and flowers. Unlike their rural counterparts who may encounter vast fields of the same species, urban bees flit from flower to flower, collecting a kaleidoscope of colors.

The reason for this single-color preference is quite simple. Individual bees, known for their meticulous nature, dedicate themselves to foraging from one type of flower at a time. This ensures efficient pollen collection and prevents the unwanted mixing of pollen from different species, which could compromise the colony’s reproductive success.

But the intrigue doesn’t end there. For the curious beekeeper, pollen colors become a tool for investigation. By carefully observing the incoming pollen and comparing it to the blooming flowers in the surrounding area, one can piece together a map of the bees’ foraging routes. This knowledge can be valuable for understanding the health and diversity of the local ecosystem and ensuring that the bees have access to a variety of nutritious pollen sources.

So, the next time you see a bee returning with a vibrant pollen pellet, remember that it carries a hidden story, waiting to be deciphered. Through the language of color, the bees invite us to embark on a journey of discovery, unveiling the secrets of their world and the beauty of the natural landscape that sustains them.

Eucalyptus Honey

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While California is well known for its picturesque palm trees, one can’t help but also notice the multitude of eucalyptus trees that seemingly sprout up everywhere. You might think that eucalyptus could even be the state tree, but there is no unseating the majestic redwoods that have deservedly earned that honor. Nevertheless, eucalyptus can be found in abundance throughout much of California, especially in the coastal and temperate areas of the state, where Wildflower Meadows is located.

Many different kinds of eucalyptus can be found around our apiaries – so many that there’s no keeping count. Some are large and sprawling; others are smaller and shapelier. Some have dark green leaves; others are light green. Eucalyptus is not technically just one tree, it’s actually a genus that includes over seven hundred species of flowering trees. Most species of eucalyptus are native to Australia, not the U.S., but they were introduced in California in the late 1700s.

From a beekeeper’s perspective, eucalyptus is gold. Nearly all the trees blossom with rich nectar-producing flowers. Plus, with all the different species, the flowering is varied and staggered over many months. Some species blossom in the summer, some in autumn, and some in the winter. It’s hard to imagine why a tree would blossom in the winter, but many beekeepers surmise that certain types of eucalyptus trees, being Australian natives, never abandoned their Australian seasonality.

Most species of eucalyptus have fluffy white, cream, yellow, pink, or red flowers. The flowers are a little unusual, however, making them easily recognizable. They get their fluffy appearance from a large display of stamens, instead of petals. Some are pretty to look at, others are not particularly attractive from a human perspective. Nevertheless, from the bees’ perspective, nearly all eucalyptus flowers are a treat! Eucalyptus blossoms are not necessarily known for being a rich pollen source for bees, but they do produce nectar – and often lots of it.

Although the leaves of eucalyptus plants are well known for their powerful essential oils – which are used for pharmaceutical purposes, disinfecting, insect repellent, flavoring, and fragrances – the nectar from the blossoms doesn’t quite deliver exactly the same flavor. The honey does, however, contain the eucalyptol compound, which gives it a somewhat medicinal, distinctive taste along with some healing properties.

Historically, eucalyptus honey has been used to treat coughs, common colds, congestion, and respiratory diseases due to its anti-inflammatory properties. Its antibacterial properties also make it helpful for treating minor cuts and burns. Eucalyptus honey promotes relaxation when consumed or when added to a running bath as well. The honey has a beautiful dark, reddish amber color and can be a great addition to food, beverages, or simply eaten from the jar.

How Far Should Beehives Be Placed from Your Home?

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Whether you’re an avid beekeeper or a “newbee,” you’ve probably wondered where is the best spot to place your hive. If you’re planning to keep your beehive in your backyard and accessible from your home, there are definitely a few things you should consider. But just how close to your house can you put your hive?

The general rule is there should be a minimum of 4-feet behind and on either side of the hive, with a minimum of 25-feet of clearance at the entrance – but there’s really no cut-and-dry answer for this. In the end, most beekeepers – including us here at Wildflower Meadows – will say to use common sense and consider your personal situation.  Each home, property, and neighborhood are unique, and each will offer its own hurdles.   However, there are a few additional and critical aspects to consider when choosing where to place a beehive on your property.

Before you start searching for the perfect spot on your property, you should first make sure beekeeping is allowed where you live. Some cities and states may have zoning restrictions on beekeeping, or on the number of hives that are permitted on a property. Some homeowners’ associations and private neighborhoods may also have policies that pertain to beekeeping, so be sure to ask around before getting too far ahead in the process.

When choosing a hive site, it’s important to remember that while most honeybees are docile, some colonies can be more defensive than others. Even if you keep gentle bee stock, there are certain times of the year or situations where the temperament of the hive can be affected – adverse weather, excessive disturbances, or a pest infestation for example.  Keeping the entrance of your hive away from high traffic areas of your yard, or too close to the entrances of your home is best to avoid annoyances or stings.

Even though you’re a fan of bees, your friends, family members, or neighbors may not be as keen. A curious child or pet that wanders too close to the hive could alert worker bees – a situation you’d likely prefer to avoid.  To help keep the peace between your household and your beehive, it is best to keep the hive in an area away from children and high traffic areas of your outdoor space.

Foot traffic isn’t the only issue with residential beekeeping, vehicle traffic can pose problems to your colony too.  Windshields are unfortunately a popular bee graveyard.  While honeybees are known to fly miles away from their home to forage for nectar, they do need some space to reach a high altitude. Without any nearby obstacles, bees will generally require about 6 feet of linear space to gain 6 feet of altitude – similar to when a plane takes off on a runway.

Providing this amount of “runway” may not be ideal or available for you, so you might want to encourage your bees to gain altitude more rapidly by keeping your beehives surrounded by tall shrubs, fences or walls.   This will force your bees to reach altitude more rapidly, keeping them away from the ground level right from the start.  (Nevertheless, there are limitations to this strategy, and one must use common sense.  For example, if your home is more than two stories tall and your beehive’s entrance is placed too close to your home, one of two things can happen. Your bees will either need to expend more energy to fly up and over your home, or the bees will avoid flying in that direction altogether, limiting their foraging options.)   Of course, some beekeepers choose to place beehives on their rooftops, as it’s the easiest way to get bees flying at a higher altitude and away from human hazards.

Finally, no matter where you choose to place your hive, you will always also want to make sure that bees have access to a reliable and clean water source.

What Is Pollination?

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As beekeepers, we know that honeybees are instrumental in pollinating the majority of the foods that we humans need and value, such as our many fruits, vegetables, and legumes.  In fact, according to Google, bees and other pollinators affect 35 percent of global agricultural land, supporting the production of 87 of the leading food crops worldwide!  Wikipedia’s list of crop plants pollinated by bees is extensively long.

Honeybees also pollinate many other types of trees and plants throughout the natural world.  In fact, honeybees are one of the most industrious pollinators on the planet, and critical to the success of much of human agriculture.

But what exactly is pollination, and what is actually going on when honeybees pollinate flowers?

When we humans admire the beauty of flowers, we rarely stop to consider that flowers are the sexual organs of plants.  There are male flowers, and there are female flowers.  The goal of nature is to move the genetic material from the male to the female.  Pollination is the transfer of male microspores from a male flower to the ovule of a female flower.  This is the sexual reproduction of a plant, ultimately resulting in the creation of a seed.

A male flower features what is called a stamen.  This is the part of the male flower that produces pollen.  A female flower features what is called the pistil.  The tip of the pistil, called the stigma, receives the pollen and transfers the pollen down the pistil to the flower’s ovule, fertilizing it and enabling the formation of a fruit or some other carrier of the plant’s seed, such as a pod, a vegetable, or just a seed itself.

The honeybee’s role in all of this is to transfer the pollen from male flower to female flower.  Some plants and trees have both male and female flowers on the same tree (monoecious) or male flowers on one tree and female flowers on another (dioecious).  Either way, a honeybee doesn’t seem to care much.  She just goes from flower to flower, plant to plant, looking for nectar, and in the process inadvertently transfers tiny pieces of pollen from male flowers to female flowers without that even being her goal.

It is most likely that the main reason that flowers look so appealing, and feature such sweet nectar, is to attract animals to pollinate them.  The sweeter the nectar that a plant produces, the bigger the lure for honeybees and other insect pollinators, such as bumblebees, orchard bees, squash bees and solitary bees, to visit.

Honeybees are not the only animal pollinators of plants.  Any animal that visits flowers contributes to pollination – hummingbirds, bats, butterflies, ladybugs, beetles and other insects – also pollinate.  Sadly, like honeybees, many of these beneficial pollinators are under environmental stress, and face ongoing population decline.

There are some plants, however, that do not rely on animals for pollination, but rather are wind pollinated, such as the grasses of corn, wheat, and rice.  It is noteworthy, that unlike animal-pollinated blossoms, which are almost always colorful and sweet, these wind-pollinated blossoms look exceedingly dull and contain no nectar.  This is because they have no incentive to attract pollinating animals, such as honeybees.  Instead, the goal of wind pollinated plants is simply to produce as much pollen as possible and throw the pollen into the wind, hoping that it hits its target.

As beekeepers, we may be a bit biased, but we much prefer flower pollination by bees, as just thinking about windward grass pollen make us want to sneeze!

Urban Beekeeping

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Most people consider beekeeping to be a rural pastime, but plenty of beekeepers successfully keep bees in cities or suburbs.  These brave individuals, known as urban beekeepers, face their own sets of challenges and rewards.

There are unique payoffs to urban beekeeping that traditional rural beekeepers simply can not obtain.  First, cities and suburbs feature abundant flower sources from multiple types of trees, shrubs and gardens.  Urban flower sources also tend to be largely impervious to drought or lack of rainfall, because homeowners and city governments rarely stop watering landscapes and gardens.

Let’s face it, almost every home or business has a flowering garden of some sort.  Plus, cities and suburbs are abundant with trees, many of which are well known to be excellent honey sources – elms, maples, and sourwood in the eastern US, tupelos and magnolias in the south, eucalyptus and willow in the west, mesquite in the desert, and an abundance of fruit trees nearly everywhere.  It only takes a few blooming trees to deliver an excellent source of nectar to an urban colony of bees.

Furthermore, in many urban areas, only a limited number of honeybees compete for those bountiful nectar sources.  Unlike in the countryside, cities and suburbs rarely feature giant apiaries of honeybees that compete for all of this excellent forage.  As a result, urban bees generally have a better ratio of honeybees to flowers than in the countryside.  That is why urban beekeepers almost always produce larger and more consistent honey crops than their rural counterparts; massive 200+ pound honey crops per colony are not uncommon in urban beekeeping.

The challenges of urban beekeeping, however, are obvious.  Close neighbors, strict zoning, and high liability immediately come to mind.

Of course, there are ways to mitigate these concerns.  If you are an urban beekeeper or plan on becoming one, here are a few tips to keep in mind.

Out of sight, out of mind:

Stealth and secrecy is probably the most important consideration for an urban beekeeper.  In general, the less people who have any idea about your hobby, the better off you will be.  It only takes one overreacting neighbor to potentially shut down your entire endeavor.  Your beehives and your bees’ flight paths are best kept out of the sight (and minds) of the public.

Keeping your beehives surrounded by tall shrubs, fences or walls will assist you by not only hiding your colonies, but by also forcing your bees to fly high overhead rather than at ground level. This will keep their flight paths clear of people and out of the line of sight.  Keeping beehives on a rooftop also accomplishes the same.

Keep gentle bees:

Always keep known gentle races of bees and requeen them regularly so that the bees are of a known, gentle origin.

Watch out for powerful night lighting:

Bees, of course being insects that they are, can’t help but to fly into lights.  Nearby powerful night lighting can agitate beehives during the evening and keep individual foraging bees from properly orienting at dusk and dawn.

Think about your neighbors, and choose the best times to work your bees:

Obviously, it is best not to work your colonies when neighbors, children and pets are outside and nearby.  Extreme caution is always best.

Keep zoning in mind:

Always adhere to your county and city zoning requirements.

Don’t forget about water:

Bees need plenty of water.  Maintaining a nearby clean water source for the bees will keep your bees out of your neighbors’ swimming pools and fountains.

And, finally, share the love:

If nearby neighbors do know about your bees, a few jars of honey each year is a small price to pay toward keeping them on board with your hobby.  Sweeten the deal, and you will make some new friends in the process!

 

Our friends at Redfin have recently prepared an excellent guide for urban beekeepers.  If you would like to learn more about this subject, please visit 5 Steps to Becoming a Backyard Beekeeper.

 

forager

The Forager

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An adult worker honeybee typically progresses through a series of roles during her short life span.  During her first two weeks of life she assumes the role of nurse bee, staying inside of the colony, tending to the larvae and to the many needs of the queen bee.  By the start of her third week, still inside the colony she takes on a slightly different role of  an “intermediate” bee; a worker bee who has not quite graduated to foraging status yet.  Her work at this point mostly consists of receiving and storing nectar from the forager bees, producing wax, and building comb.

By the start of the third week, however, a worker bee “graduates” her housekeeping duties and finally becomes a forager.  She will begin by taking a series of training flights to get oriented, and then ultimately heads out into the open world to forage for nectar, pollen, water, and propolis.  The transition to foraging is more or less a death sentence for a worker bee.  The risks to a foraging bee’s life are vastly higher than to a young bee that stays safely inside a well-secured colony.  Not only does a foraging bee have to deal with predators such as swallows and other bee-eating birds, a forager faces a multitude of environmental dangers such as cold, heat, drowning, spider webs, car windshields, etc.  Of course, a forager also can get lost or exhausted in her many daily trips to and from the colony.

A foraging bee makes an average ten to fifteen foraging trips per day!  With this heavy workload, even the strongest and luckiest forager bee only will live about another three weeks while foraging.  Assuming an intrepid foraging bee makes it through the gauntlet of dangers during her daily foraging, sadly her little wings will eventually wear out from all the hard work.  By her third week of foraging she reaches the end of her short lifespan.

Single Source Honey

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The above photo of bees in a lavender field was taken in France, where lavender is grown commercially.  Lavender is also grown in Spain and other parts of the European Union.

The honey from lavender blossoms is arguably one of the most prized single-source varietal honeys in the world.  It is almost exclusively imported from Europe.  This honey is magnificently delicious with a delicate flavor and slight purple hue.  Lavender honey is expensive, but if you are a honey connoisseur, it is highly worth a try.

Single sourced honey originates from a single flower type and, as a result, takes on the unique flavor and characteristics of that blossom.  In order to capture a single source of nectar and to produce single source varietal, the beekeeper needs to strategically place colonies of honeybees on or alongside a vast area of the exact same blossoms, such as clover, acacia, alfalfa, or in the above case, lavender.  There should be at least a square mile of the same kind of blossoms in the area blossoming at about the same time.  The blossoms need to be attractive to the bees, and there should not be any competing flowers nearby that could dilute the flavor of the honey – especially other kinds of flowers that are equally or more attractive to the bees.

For most backyard beekeepers, producing single source honey is entirely out of the question.  With houses nearby and all sorts of flowering gardens, the honey produced is nearly always a blend of “wildflowers”, or more accurately, garden blossoms.

At Wildflower Meadows, we have seen our bees working lavender blossoms from time to time.  Occasionally, a nearby enterprising gardener will plant a garden of lavender, usually for some sort of aromatherapy or essential oil project that they have in mind.  Our bees are most pleased to do their part and pay a visit. Unfortunately, however, there is never even close to enough lavender to consider the resulting honey single source.  Obtaining a particular honey varietal is an art unto itself, and takes a knowledgeable beekeeper that is dedicated to this singular pursuit.

What Attracts Honeybees To Flowers?

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When flying about, honeybees’ two most powerful senses are their eyesight and sense of smell.  When at full bloom, flowers’ most attractive features are their beauty to the eyes, as well as their fragrance to the nose.  Is this a coincidence?  No.  Honeybees are designed to find flowers, and flowers are designed to find honeybees.

Did you ever wonder why flowers are almost never the same color as the plant itself?  The flower on any plant needs to stand out, and be as beautiful and fragrant as it can be to attract the bees that it needs for the next generation of plants to survive.

As humans we also appreciate the beauty and fragrance of a perfect flower.  But compared to what a bee experiences, our visual perception of a flower is downright drab.  It is as though we are looking at an old scratched computer screen while the bees are watching a 3D movie in IMAX!  Not only is a bee’s sense of smell keenly more acute than ours, a bee’s eyesight is perfectly optimized for identifying flowers.

You may not know this, but flowers display a richness that largely escapes our range of vision.  Bees see in a different range of frequencies, or spectrum, than humans.  Whereas a human’s eyesight ranges from red to violet on the color spectrum (the colors of the rainbow), the bees’ vision ranges from orange to ultraviolet.  Bees cannot see red, but they can see well into the ultraviolet spectrum.  In the ultraviolet spectrum, many flowers have an iridescent quality, in which they appear to change color or flicker from one color to another.  While we humans fail to see this beauty, the bees identify it immediately.

A bees eye view of the same photo

If humans could see into the ultraviolet spectrum, we would see iridescent colors in a flower, along with patterns on the petals of flowers that seem to almost point the way to the nectar source.  A dandelion, when seen in the UV spectrum, is not completely yellow but has a rich and darker looking center that immediately draws attention.  That center, not coincidentally, is where the nectar lies.

Bees’ vision is also vastly faster than ours, which means that they can identify changes in colors while on the move. In fact, honeybees can actually identify individual flowers while traveling at high speed!  Is it any wonder why scout bees never fail to “stop and smell the flowers” along the way?

Honeybees And Gardening

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While commercially managed bee colonies largely feed on managed crops and wildflowers, the backyard beehives rely on flowering trees and local gardens for food.

Garden Flowers

Local gardens are an especially valuable resource for urban and suburban beehives.  Unlike agricultural crops, which feature acres of the same flowers over large geographic areas, local gardens provide bees exactly the opposite:  a diverse source of nutrients over a small geographic footprint.  Private gardens benefit bees because the vast variety of flowers produces a diverse diet.  The variation of flowers also results in an extended flowering period.  When one type of plant finishes flowering, typically another takes over.

If you are a gardener, consider yourself an ally of the bees. They love you!  Here are a few simple things that you can do to help your friendly neighborhood honeybee get a leg up.

Plant a Bee Garden

What could be more adorable than a bee garden? These fuzzy insects are friendly and non-confrontational (don’t get them confused with their look-a-like, the wasp!). They’ll bop along in your garden, pollinating and dancing from plant to plant. Not interested in a flower or veggie garden? Not to worry, bees love a variety of plants, from trees, shrubs, and grasses to fruits and vegetables. 

Landscaping plants. If you’re planting new trees in your yard or planning landscaping from scratch, here are some bee-friendly options:

  • Birch trees
  • Cherry trees
  • Alder trees
  • Maple trees
  • Sumac
  • Ninebark
  • Elderberry
  • Cotoneaster
  • Lilac

Flowers. We all know bees love flowers, but some varieties are incredibly enticing to these hard-working pollinators. Check your local growing zone for what flowers will grow best in your area before planting.

  • Bee balm
  • Lilies
  • Daffodils
  • Purple coneflower
  • Sunflowers
  • Brown-Eyed Susans
  • Larkspur
  • Columbine

Fruits and Veggies. Almost anything that honeybees can pollinate flowers, here are some options that are particular favorites of many bees:

  • Plum trees
  • Apple trees
  • Crabapple trees
  • Peach trees
  • Pear trees
  • Blackberries
  • Raspberries
  • Blueberries

Go Chemical-Free

One of the other significant things you can do to help bees make their comeback is eliminating chemical pesticides. This isn’t to say that you can’t use pesticides altogether; many natural options will protect your plants without compromising your resident honeybees.

A portion of this post is reprinted by permission from our friends at Porch.com.  For further information please visit “Saving the Bees.” 

Bee Bread

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Like all animals, bees need protein to survive.  While nectar is an excellent source of carbohydrates for bees, it is lacking in protein.  Bee pollen, besides containing other minerals and enzymes, is the primary source of protein in a beehive.  In optimal conditions, foraging bees obtain protein for the hive by gathering pollen from flowers and bringing the pollen back to the hive in their pollen baskets.  Once these flower pollen pellets are gathered by foraging bees, the pollen is then referred to as bee pollen.

If you’ve ever bought or collected bee pollen to use as a nutritional supplement, you quickly learn that bee pollen needs to be frozen, or at least refrigerated, so that it does not spoil.  How then are bees able to store bee pollen in an environment that is 93 degrees on average?

The bees’ secret to storing and preserving pollen is that they convert the pollen pellets that they gather into “bee bread,” which is a combination of pollen, honey and enzymes.  The honey and enzymes combine to form a natural preservative that keeps the pollen from spoiling, and preserves its nutritional value almost indefinitely.  This bee bread is stored inside the honey combs, typically alongside the brood nest, where it is consumed by nurse bees who convert it to royal jelly or worker jelly to feed larvae.

One of the more satisfying sights to a conscientious beekeeper when inspecting a hive is finding a giant colorful frame of beebread.  The colors give away the sources from where the bees have been collecting pollen.  In Southern California, yellow bee bread in the spring typically means that the bees have been working golden mustard, while yellow bee bread in the fall generally originates from goldenrod.  Sometimes – especially in areas where the bees are located near residential homes and exotic gardens – we notice the strangest assortment of colors.  Bright blue or near florescent red can make a beekeeper scratch his head, and wonder, “Where in the world did that pollen come from!”