Looking for osr

[crabbitdave]

Hi all, as I stay at the edge of west Lothian, am finding impossible to find a site of osr for my bee's to visit as most of the farms around don't grow much more than grass or windmill's, I was looking for a site of osr to help them at the start of the year, as there is not much forage for them at the start of the year at home. So if anybody knows any framers or knows of any sites with space for two hives, I'd be a great help.
Thanks Dave


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[Falcon]

Hi Dave
There ,s plenty of OSR fields between Livingston and Broxburn (see them from the M8)Not too far from Armadale and a good few smallholdings,private woods,pieces of land within range and the farm who owns the fields.Take a run for a few hours some one bound to give you permission for a couple of hives.Was thinking about it myself but over the last few years my hives have,nt been strong enough to take an early crop using all their energy to build and by the time at full working capacity its late June -July and there,s plenty of other foraging
Trying some pollen sub. this year to help the build up and hope we dont have cold Spring like last year.I,ve got plenty of trees nearby to supply, all i need is some heat to get the bees out.

[crabbitdave]

Thanks falcon I do bit of scouting about this week I tried a neopol last year but they did seam to like it, just hoping for some good weather for us all


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[snimmo243]

Hi Dave I found two osr fields about a mile from my bees, there also seems to be a few fields between winchburgh and kirkliston

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[crabbitdave]

Great stuff Steven I'll give you phone


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[snimmo243]

This is the osr about a mile from my bees today!

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/03/22/e4u9eqyr.jpg

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[greengumbo]

This is the osr about a mile from my bees today!

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/03/22/e4u9eqyr.jpg

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Oooft. Is that early for your area ?

I was thinking ours would be another 5 weeks but maybe I'm well out. Ours is about a 8 inches tall at the moment so any flowering / nectar producing estimates from forum members most appreciated ?

[snimmo243]

This is very early, apparently the farmer put it in early in the autumn, the rest of the fields are of varying heights

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[GRIZZLY]

If the weather warms up it will "bolt" and shoot into flower. If however the cold spell continues, it will hold it back and be slower coming into flower.

[gavin]

I've seen fields at that stage about a week into April but never in March. GG, yours will be flowering in less than 5 weeks, almost definitely. As grizzly says, it depends. Maybe three?

Bees flying strongly today and bringing back big loads of willow pollen, despite the hard frost last night.

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[crabbitdave]

I've spoken to the farmer who's field it is he said the rape that's flowering is from seed that never took last year the mane crop will flower in 4 to 5 weeks might give my hives time to build up with a bit of luck and some good weather.


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[Wmfd]

Down here in Cambridgeshire I can see quite a lot of yellow starting to come through. Even more further south on the way to London.


I am going to take a look at the field I plan to put hives in at the weekend and may move them up there if far enough advanced.

[Adam]

There's a field starting to flower a few hundred metres from me. And the daffs are still in flower. A broom in the garden is flowering and that usually flowers in May. It's all far too early!

[gavin]

There's a field near Auchterarder which was showing a bit of yellow on Friday and today had advanced quite a lot - not full flower but yellow enough to be causing a stir in any local colonies. Time to get those supers ready. .

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[GRIZZLY]

Shan't bother with rape this year - still got 200 lbs left from last year. Want to breed up my black bees this year.

[fatshark]

Grizzly makes a good point re. weight … I woke in the night thinking about this having moved two more colonies to a 250 acre field of OSR late in the evening (making 6 in total). My hive stands take 3 colonies each but neither has central supporting legs :eek: I think I'll have to fix this in the next fortnight before the OSR achieves full flower (luckily this week looks too cold for it to progress much).

1972