Plant Profile: White Clover {Trifolium repens} by Crooked Bear Creek Organic Herbs

Tags

beekeeping, clover, ecology, honey bee forage, White Clover

Here’s some good information regarding white clover – a honey bee favorite! – sassafrasbeefarm

Article by: Crooked Bear Creek Organic Herbs

White clover (botanical name Trifolium repens) is a clover species that is indigenous to Europe, West Asia and Northern regions of Africa. Extensively introduced across the globe, this species is cultivated in the form of a pasture crop and is currently even common in the grassland regions of North America as well as New Zealand. White clover is also known as Dutch clover, as this species was cultivated in Holland for the first time.

White clover is a herbaceous (herb-like) perennially growing small plant. It grows close to the ground and produces small whitish flower heads, which usually have a pink or creamy tinge, which may occur as the plant matures. Usually, the flower heads measure anything between 1.5 cm and 2.0 cm (0.6 inches and 0.8 inches) wide and appear at the end of the flower stalks or peduncles measuring about 7 cm or 2.8 inches.

Read the excellent and lengthy full blog post here:  Plant Profile: White Clover {Trifolium repens} by Crooked Bear Creek Organic Herbs

The joys of buckwheat

Tags

beekeeping, forage

Source: The joys of buckwheat

During these late summer months in East Tennessee, we typically think there is not much available for the bees as far as sources of nectar and pollen.

That doesn’t have to be the case.

If you have any kind of a garden (or just an open area), buckwheat can provide great benefits for your bees and your soil. Buckwheat can be sown at any time during warm weather. Ideally, it takes three to four weeks to come up (sometimes longer, depending on the weather), and produces a small white flower that the bees love.

When the blooms die back after a couple of weeks, the buckwheat will re-seed itself and if there is enough warm weather and rain, it will come back. These cycles will continue until the first frost.

The bees make honey off of the nectar from the  buckwheat flower. This is honey that you can harvest or that you can leave on the hive to reduce the necessity of winter feeding.

The best results for an initial stand of buckwheat are to clear the soil, sow the seed and then do a light till. If possible, do all this before a good rain.

Buckwheat has a morning nectar flow, and that’s when you will see bees working it. They don’t work it in the afternoon.

Besides being good for bees, buck-wheat is good for the soil. It prevents weeds, supports beneficial insects and returns a lot of nitrogen to the ground. So, if you have a patch of garden or land and want to do something for your bees, plant some buckwheat.

Key words: buckwheat, garden, bees and buckwheat, re-seeding buckwheat, growing buckwheat, source of nectar for bees, butterflies and buckwheat

Source: The joys of buckwheat