Forage

[Mellifera Crofter]

As the weather is so wet and cold, and with the lack of forage nearby for my bees, I thought of taking them to an oilseed rape field so that they can make use of the brief sunny spells to fly out of their hives and straight onto some flowers - but will it help them?

In 'Today's News' Jon said the rape won't have any nectar yet, and I've been told by a farmer that pollination time for OSR is about 14 days after the flowers start to appear. Does that mean it is pointless taking them now? Will there be pollen or nectar for them?

Kitta

[gavin]

Mine were bringing in forage from various places yesterday including OSR despite a temperature of about 10C. They will get something from rape in sheltered places at that temperature (well, locally the temp may be higher) ... oh, and there is an apiary in Fife on OSR which needed a second super. There will be some slightly warmer days ahead, so I'd go for it.

Pollination time is when the flowers are open!

[Rosie]

I believe (but can't prove it) that rape nectar flow depends on sunshine and hence photosynthesis more than temperature. In addition, whether the sun shines or not there will be useful pollen to be had. My problem with rape is that the bees often produce queen cells while on the rape and then mate with non-local drones. They come back screwed up. I had to requeen the last lot because I could not handle them.

Rosie

[gavin]

I believe (but can't prove it) that rape nectar flow ....

Yes you can! Get out there with a big umbrella when the sun comes out .... and get someone to take pictures of you in (in)action.

:)

G.

[Jon]

A lot of plants only secrete nectar above a certain temperature. Finman on BKF was saying 20c for rape but others suggested less than that. No shortage of pollen at the moment. Last year no-one locally got any honey from the oil seed rape as the weather was cool and wet. At the moment it is worse.

[gavin]

I can imagine that his centrally heated Italians like to wait until it is *really* warm before venturing out! :D

But yes, Jon was probably right to put a slight dampener on my enthusiasm there. But if all you are after is topping up during brief sunny spells rather than filling supers then go for it. Maybe picking a warm spot near a S-facing field would help? The super filling might come the following week if it warms up a bit then.

[Jon]

There is a lot of forage at the moment and the apple blossom is well out now. Dandelions everywhere. The worst scenario is constant rain. I have loads of bees foraging once the temperature rises to 8c or 9c.
I put supers on three colonies last Monday to give the bees more space and when I looked yesterday one had a little nectar in it so there must be some plants secreting nectar at low temperatures. The bees I see foraging on the apple blossom are all collecting pollen. I noticed some on the dandelion which did not have pollen sacks so must have been collecting nectar.

[gavin]

So I suppose that the advice to Kitta is to make sure that there is forage for her bees - sycamore, OSR, dandelion, fruits trees - at whichever site she uses. As I've hinted elsewhere (and I'm not certain about this) bees seem to forage on sycamore in the rain or inbetween showers if it is warm enough. Presumably their flowers get wet less easily. Don't know if they are better providers at low temperature than other plants.

[Jon]

Presumably their flowers get wet less easily.

Raspberry is like that as well, not that there will be any flowering at the moment.
I think bell shaped flowers which hang down are more likely to yield pollen after heavy rain as the pollen has some protection.
Is that right Gav? You should know these things as they pay you to mess around with pollen.

[gavin]

Absolutely. I think. Actually, not so sure that rasp flowers hang down while they are fully open. The poor plant has to choose between facing outwards to the sun (for warmth, for the pollinators) when fully open and hanging down to protect its sensitive bits. Some flowers (rape included) are quite good at closing up when conditions are less than favourable. Blueberries definitely stay hanging down as they are built that way.

[Mellifera Crofter]

Thank you for all the helpful advice and information. I'll try to get the bees to an OSR field as soon as possible. From what you're saying, I think they'll be better off there than on our windswept hill. I think the nearest OSR field is too far for them to be able to reach in this weather, and our sycamore trees
are only just starting to form buds. I don't think there's much else apart from a few gorse bushes (and not even banks and banks of them as I see elsewhere).

I'll try to be vigilant about queen cells, Rosie.

Many thanks,
Kitta

[Jon]

Found this on raspberry pollination (http://ucanr.org/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=2739).

I winder is there a difference between summer and autumn fruiting varieties. I have the autumn fruiting type and I often see bees on the flowers in the mizzle.

I noticed today they are getting nectar from the blackcurrants as well.
Mine are foraging well. I looked in 3 colonies at lunchtime and had to remove some stores to make room for the queen to lay. They have supers on but prefer to clog up the main box.

[gavin]

The sun was out at lunchtime - briefly - and I managed to get away and have a quick check. All of them are light and another few days of the same weather as we've been having and I think that they would succumb to starvation amidst the plenty of sycamore, horse chestnut, dandelion, rape, pear. It looks like here we will have a little sun on Saturday and Sunday and it should be slightly warmer on Monday and Tuesday so they should survive without feeding (wiser to give them some though). Apiaries in less favoured spots might be in serious trouble.

[Jimbo]

Had a rare day off and went around all my colonies All a bit mixed. Some were light and I decided to give a sugar syrup feed to about half just to be safe. A couple were strong enought to get a super on. Weather for next week looks good with dry and high temperatures predicted for the west