Gorse bush

[REDWOOD]

Do Gorse bushes yeld a good supply of nectar or pollen ?

 

[wmfd]

Both nectar and pollen, according to Martin Crawford's "Bee Plants". It also has it down as flowering in April and May and I thought it flowered more than that, so I suspect there may be a range of varieties.

David

 

[BeeJayBee]

There's a saying, "Love is out of fashion when the gorse is not in bloom." Appropriate for St Valentine's Day too.

There are likely to be gorse flowers through 12 months of the year, although each plant is likely to have its' own best time to flower.

 

[susbees]

As the owner of multitudinous gorse bushes I can vouch for the fact they flower all year round here.

Our bees mine them for pollen when there's nothing else they prefer and there were bees on gorse here late January - didn't have the camera out of course.

 

[For want of a better word]

The only thing I know about gorse is that the seeds contain the only source of naturally occurring anti A antibody.... how in hell did somebody work that one out ?

 

[REDWOOD]

The reason why I asked is that there is about half an acre behind my bees and I never see them working it only the crab apple and hawthorn trees about 500 yards away

 

[Erichalfbee]

As susbees says......only when there's nothing else.
If your gorse blooms at the same time as the hawthorn it might well be ignored

 

[susbees]

As susbees says......only when there's nothing else.
If your gorse blooms at the same time as the hawthorn it might well be ignored

We tend to see that with the annual dandelion epidemic. Whilst some find yellow honey and yellow comb...ours are elsewhere. And we do dandelions big time.

 

[Easy Beesy]

Depending on where in the country you are, some people call gorse, whin. Is it the very spiny yellow stuff or the thin whippy yellow stuff?
Eb

 

[susbees]

Depending on where in the country you are, some people call gorse, whin. Is it the very spiny yellow stuff or the thin whippy yellow stuff?
Eb

Gorse is spiny...not far from here it's used for hedging. The other stuff is broom.

 

[Easy Beesy]

In Scotland the whippy stuff is whin or broom. Reading recent post on here in Ireland it is 'whim or gorse, depending on the part of the country from which you hail'. Maybe the latin name for stuff has a place after all.

 

[susbees]

And whinberries grow on bilberry bushes...so no whippy whin here...

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[Poly Hive]

From a Scottish perspective I can assure you that whins are whins and gorse is gorse.

Gorse is very thorny and flowers near all year, and whins are green and whippy and flower in June/July and the bees that work them come back with yellow pollen tween their "shoulder blades" due the stamen being on a trigger which when pollinated whips the insect to ensure a good shower of pollen.

PH

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

From a Scottish perspective I can assure you that whins are whins and gorse is gorse.

PH

And as a Welshman Whinberries do grow on bilberry bushes!!
Many a day I spent as a youngster picking whinberries on the Black Mountain whilst my peers would be running around trashing bus shelters and the like! One year,I think I was 10 or 11 I picked 120 lbs which I sold in our shop at a pound a lb - my father was earning about 40 pounds a week then as a carpenter!!

 

[susbees]

Not all over Scotland....I lived there 25 years in three places and it was broom. But brambles grew on bramble bushes...none of that blackberry stuff...

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[Into the lions den]

Gorse is very thorny and flowers near all year, and whins are green and whippy and flower in June/JulyPH

lol............local differences eh?

In Perthshire (which borders with the Aberdeenshire former stamping ground of PH) gorse, whin, and sometimes even furze, are all the same thing. The jaggy ones.

Broom is broom.....the non jaggy one taller and thinner built.

Have even seen a Fife smallholding that was getting overgrown receive an official control order to get them to cut back the amount of 'whins' on their ground.......it was the gorse bush we all know.

 

[Poly Hive]

I managed to confuse myself and should have put the whippy stuff is broom not whin.

On the wrong side of the border for too long.

PH

 

[Rob55]

Here in N.Ireland, whins and gorse are the same thing, thick prickly stuff that flowers all year and goes on fire easily.

Broom is the whippy stuff.

 

[susbees]

I managed to confuse myself and should have put the whippy stuff is broom not whin.

On the wrong side of the border for too long.

PH

Had me worried PH having spent the last eight of the 25 in and around Aberdeen...