songbird wrote:
Terry Coombs wrote:
...
I have REAL bees ... if in fact you do too , go to www.beesource.com
and find a wealth of information . As far as bee-attractive plants ,
they like pretty much anything that has a flower . The problem is
that you'd need like 5 acres in bee forage plants to make much
difference .

a mix of flowers that bloom from the earliest
spring time to the latest fall.

and even a little can help, especially for the
smaller and more diverse native bee species.

we don't have five acres here, but i see a
great deal of bee activity from many species
through the whole season. it depends a lot upon
what else is around that bees might find. in
this area, not much is blooming other than a
few weeds along the ditches so the bees are
not finding much food elsewhere, corn doesn't do
much for them as compared to a diverse planting.

for early season flowers we have crocus and
some real early irises (which are out now at
last). then we go into daffodils, tulips, more
early irises, hyacynths, strawberries, honeysuckle,
clover, alfalfa, trefoil, dandelion, chicory, ...
the latest blooming plants we see here are the
asters.

most planting guides will give you a range of
time when a plant "normally" blooms, but that can
vary somewhat season to season.


songbird

I have seeds for a variety of bee-friendly plants , and one of the things
I looked at was timing/duration of bloom . It looks like everything is about
to happen at once here . The bee hive needs to be split , the seedlings all
need to be planted , and I need to get the rest of the direct-seeded stuff
in the ground . And the damn Anaheim peppers still haven't germinated .

--
Snag