clover

[lindsay s]

Is Clover, Wild Flowers and Heather your main source of nectar in Orkney, or do the Farmers grow Oilseed Rape? Just interested as I have been up to Orkney sailing and it is a beautiful location.

Hello Brenda
I remember that oilseed rape was grown here in the nineteen eighties and nineties but never on a large scale. It was the spring sown varieties which flowered about the same time as the clover. There were less beekeepers here then and I knew of some who hated it. I don’t know the reasons but the farmers stopped growing it in the late nineties. I was lucky because it was rarely grown near my apiary. Our town bees have a better variety of forage than most of the rural areas especially in the spring and autumn. A few beekeepers here have their apiaries near the heather but I would say it’s more of a supplement than a main crop. Our weather tends to break when the heather is flowering and it often yields very little honey. Last year was an exception and a few beekeepers further away even had a noticeable amount for the first time.

 

[Brenda]

Thank you for reply, it is just interesting to know how forage goes in different areas. My other half’s Cousin had bees up there, however I know he has given up some time ago because of arthritis. I very much enjoyed my trip to Orkney some years back, it was the Lossiemouth to Orkney Cruiser Race.

 

[lindsay s]

The clover is just reaching peak flower up here at the moment and at my rural apiary some fields are full of it just a few hundred metres from the hives. But the weather in the last week in no particular order has been low cloud with a cool wind, low cloud with drizzle and Haar (sea fog). We’ve only had a few hours of sunshine which was just enough to tease me and the bees! My apiary site often has haar while other parts of Orkney are still sunny. This results in a 3-4c drop in the temperature which is more than enough to stop most of the nectar and to keep the bees in. Even today when I started on my hives at eleven the bees were flying but by half one the haar was back and they were packing up for the day. I can do nothing about the weather and it’s a shame my bees are missing out. You might ask why do I move them there, well if the conditions are right each hive can fill a couple of supers with clover honey but it doesn’t happen as often as I would like.☹
An update it’s Monday morning and the Haar hasn’t disappeared and the local radio forecasts the same weather for the next few days as I described above ☹☹☹

 

[thorn]

Go for it, clover honey is lovely in my opinion.
A field closest to my colonies, had slurry dumped on it yesterday - it had a good amount of clover prior to that.

Ah, slurry honey. My favourite.

 

[Goodwood]

the move to the American way of industrial dairy farming here in West Wales, with cows kept indoors all year round, is causing massive damage due to the amount of slurry being created and then dumped on fields, sometimes many miles away from the farm of origin.
This is killing rivers -and when worming medication is in the slurry, killing fields as well.
Its a serious problem the government is happy to ignore as it is scared of the farming unions

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

the move to the American way of industrial dairy farming here in West Wales, with cows kept indoors all year round, is causing massive damage due to the amount of slurry being created and then dumped on fields, sometimes many miles away from the farm of origin.

And unfortunately the Welsh nats and the tories are opposing any legislation to stop slurry dumping.

 

[Goodwood]

yes I know - I am surprised the animal rights "activists" haven't picked up on it.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

yes I know - I am surprised the animal rights "activists" haven't picked up on it.

Cows aren't fluffy and cute enough