Feed and Foraging

I’ve added this section to whet your appetite. It will increase your appreciation of honey bees.

Learn about supplements and feeding bees.
Basic Assessment: be able to name the main local flora from which bees gather pollen and nectar.

A blanced on a delicate flower

Bees forage when the temperature is above 10 degrees C and the wind speed is less than 40 mph (which sounds unrealistically high since bees only fly at 30 mph with a wind behind them). In poor weather, bees briefly fly out i only to return promptly. A speed of 12 -20 mph (circa 32 km/h) is more representative.

From October to the end of March, bees in the Southern UK depend on their stored honey and pollen. In the spring, they go out on cleansing flights or to collect water when the weather is fine. They do not store water but use it to dilute honey and to cool the hive in hot weather.

Propolis

Propolis is composed mainly of tree exudates. Bees do not store it anticipating their requirements but recycle some. They use it to polish cells before the queen lays in them, strengthen combs, and seal cracks. Some strains of bees create more than others, e.g., Caucasian bees from the Eastern Mediterranean.

The photo shows bees eagerly removing something from this lump of burr comb. No signs of honey were visible; however, wax scale/particles are visible.

Bees collecting wax scales or propolis from a lump I had removed from the hive

Pollen

Electron micrographs of pollen © Crown copyright

Pollen provides the proteinaceous and lipid part of a bee’s diet. It is fed to open brood and young bees, stimulating their pharyngeal glands' development. The open brood produces a pheromone that stimulates the bees to forage for pollen.

70–150 mg of pollen are required to produce one bee. A large colony will consume 23–46 kg of pollen.

Electron microcrospy of a Dandelion pollen

Dandelion

Electron micro microscopy of Ivy pollen

Ivy

Electron microscopy of a Sweet chestnut pollen

Sweet chestnut

Electron microscopy of a holly pollen

Holly

Pollen is usually stored under the arc of honey, on the perimeter of a frame containing brood or on a frame bounding the brood area. When there is a lot available, as with Oil Seed Rape, it may be stored on both sides of frames on the edge of the brood nest. Hedera helix is another prolific pollen source. House bees store pollen by mixing it with honey, tamping it down and covering the cell with a layer of wax.

Bees living in arable areas may need pollen supplements during spring, which should be placed directly on the top bars (some sort of eke is required).

Honey bee on a yellow flower with a lot of pollen on its face

Seasonal Forage in Surrey

Nectar

Basic Assessment: be able to name the main local flora from which bees gather pollen and nectar.

All these plants produce pollen. Other than gorse, plants in Feb/March only provide pollen.

February/March

  • Gorse (all year)

  • Crocuses

  • Hazel

  • Pussy/goat willow

March/April/May

  • Blackthorn

  • Sycamore

  • Dandelion

  • Clover

  • Chestnut

  • Hawthorn

  • Top fruit

  • Oil seed rape

I have sucked most of this information out of Basic Beekeeping Study Notes written by JD and BD Yates (published in 1999).

Enjoy more: Feeding bees

June/July/August

  • Field bee

  • Clover

  • Blackberry

  • Lime

August/September

  • Ling

  • Himalayan Balsam

  • Ivy

For a well-written alternative viewpoint, see Adventuresinbeeland. The blogger contradicts what I think I know about pollen/nectar foraging and bee life duration.