The Honey Factory

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R2elk said:
The only problem I see with milkweed is that it is invasive. Once you get it started, you can't get rid of it. It spreads both by seeds and roots.

You must have a different kind of milkweed than I have. I have never seen my bees get stuck to milkweed.
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Could be, there's several different kinds of milkweed. Here its native and if you mow it in May most of the time it wont come back so they encourage people to leave some for monarchs. In the photo you can see the poor girl got both her rear and front legs stuck to the pollinia and died trying to get out. Its rare, but its one of those strange things that happens in nature.


IMG_20210623_185346471~2.jpg


Native Milkweeds by state:
https://www.milkweed4monarchs.org/find-native-milkweed-by-state/
 
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Sally PB said:
I might have these too. They have spread everywhere; I think birds spread the seeds. If the bees like them, I'll definitely leave them.

What do you do with the berries? The ones I've seen are a scant 1/4" in diameter.
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I actually do nothing with these "berries" - actually they are drupes. I heart that people cook juice and Syrup from these, but it is just too much work to harvest them. You would have to pick every single berry for itself from a shrub that is littered with sharp thorns. Real thorns, not prickles like on roses…
Making this even more tedious is the fact that all the fruits on the same branch don't ripen at the same time, so you would have to touch each drupe to test if its ripe enough while trying not to puncture your skin.
The ducks as well as a lot of small birds love the fruits and i often observer my ducks growing loooooooooong necks to pluck them. And yes, they spread the seeds together with a portion of fertilizer.
Sally PB said:
Where did you order these from?
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I have not ordered the hives, in 2022 i bought two complete hives from a local bee-breeder. He's gone out of business last year. I wonder why…
 
Apis mellifera said:
It is nice to see your bees on stuff you plant but to make any impact on colonies you need to plant acres of forage. Planting trees like black locust and basswood will make a difference. A hated plant that produces a lot of great honey is knotweed along with golden rod in the fall. My favorite honey is when knotweed and golden rod nectar are coming in, you can smell it, to me it has that sickening sweet smell like walking past a cotton candy machine. The honey is dark and has a very nice caramel vanilla flavor thats great for sweetening coffee and tea. Black berry/raspberry, milkweeds are easy to grow and bees love. I like easy because my soil isn't the best. The large patches of milkweed I grow have the added benefit of attracting monarchs. Bees sometimes get stuck on the milkweed flowers. Milkweed flowers make a weird sticky pollen sack (pollinia) that get stuck to the bees. I dont think they benefit from the pollen but they do from the nectar they produce. I like growing chives and bunching onions too, bees love the flowers.
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That's why i replace every tree that i take out from my land with a young Tulip Poplar. I'm also giving those away for free to the neighbors…
 

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