How far will bees actually travel for OSR

[CB008]

I have read the books and understand the theory but I am wondering about reality. Last year I had OSR less than 100m from my hives. This year the OSR will be a mile or so away.

Given my learning experience last year with OSR and quite how "active" (swarmy) my bees became, my question is does the increased distance this year mean that I will have much the same needs to respond to or will that mile mean that they will bring in less or forage closer to home for other alternatives.

 

[drstitson]

upto 12 km according to LASI data.

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

They will not be able to make as many trips or carry as much, so you may get less if the crop is identical.

 

[drstitson]

good point mons ab.

 

[RoofTops]

I regularly have them flying 2 or 3 miles to OSR and as already mentioned they wil not bring in as much nectar but you will see them bringing in lots of pollen - a sort of muddy yellowish brown - but I think the colour is variable. However, the presence of the the pollen is the sign they are working OSR.

I find the honey is more mixed when the OSR is further away suggesting they work other flowers and not the OSR exclusivly. It still sets but tends to be darker in colour compared to the honey from OSR when the bees only have to jump over a fence to reach it.

 

[dclewis]

Its all down to what else is flowering in the area at the same time as the OSR. If the effort vs return in flying the additional distance is not surpassed by another crop then they will fly the additional distance and yes I agree for the same conditions the harvest will be lower as the effort in flying the additional distance has to be paid for.

 

[susbees]

Recent lecture: 2-3 miles but obviously a better crop if adjacent - include our weather in calculations. Our bees pretty much ignored the two fields we could see from here last year...but they weren't built up for it and found enough for their needs closer to home so not unexpected.

And I still have an uneasy feeling about spray residues on pollen going into honey. Without flaming does anyone have any neutral references (not funded by either the manufacturers or the "other wing")? Thanks.

 

[Finman]

.
I have harvested 35 years rape honey and I pronounce this

- longest forage trip what I have seen my whole yard to go is 3 miles.
It was only rape field and the whole yard forage there.

- when the distance to field is one mile, reduction of yield will be -50%

- when day temp rises to 25C and there are winds, bees do not visit in flowers.
Rape suffers lack of water and stops nectar secreting.

- if the field burst in bloom 2 km away, I move my hives to another place. I do not want
that my yield will be consumed as bee fuel and my whole year's work goes to earth's winds.

- windy fields are a bad investment to the beekeeper. It cuts away 30% - 50%. I try to find landscape where fields are ptotected from winds.

- soil type, sandy or something, which is easy to dry, is the worst trap of the yield. Hills towards sunshine are bad.

- rape does not give allways yield for unproper weather. I try to find locations which has some other main yield plants too, like raspberry, fireweed, wood cutting areas....

Nowadays I have opportunity to select from tens alternatives. It has not been allways so.
As long as price of wheat is low, it will be rape fields more than enough here.

 

[Finman]

.
When bees visit on rape flowers, their front face is typically yellow.
Quite often bees visit on rape, but I cannot find the field. I may see the direction of "flying tunnel" but i have not find the fields. It must be far away.

When flow is good, bees are not able to handle the nectar. They cluster on walls.
When the field are mile away, they do not form clusters.

I try to be carefull to what type of place I carry my hives. The yield allternatives may be 30 kg, 60 kg or every hive over 100 kg.

 

[CB008]

Thanks for these answers - much appreciated. It seems to be that they will probably find it but will bring back less than if it were next door.

 

[Tim1606]

.
- if the field burst in bloom 2 km away, I move my hives to another place. I do not want
that my yield will be consumed as bee fuel and my whole year's work goes to earth's winds.

What a lovely way of putting it Finman.

 

[Winker]

.
- if the field burst in bloom 2 km away, I move my hives to another place. I do not want
that my yield will be consumed as bee fuel and my whole year's work goes to earth's winds.

Thats something that never crossed my mind, but your right. It would be wiser to move the bees than have them flying all day long and not having an excess.

 

[Poly Hive]

Ah ha the penny drops.

If you want a crop you put your hives on said crop.

BTY The ancient Egyptians practiced migratory beekeeping and marked the rafts so they could tell the increase in hive weight by the way the raft sat in the water... Plimsoll line anyone?

PH

 

[Finman]

There are interesting researches in internet, how to locate hives if they are many.

Bees have tendency to go to nearest flowers. They do not spread evenly on field, far from that.

I think that Australians have made these critical researches. Canadian use mad numbers, 4 hives per hectare. It is mad. To 50 hectare fied all your 200 hives! All eggs in same basket, litterally.

 

[Winker]

im lucky enough to have a field of rape 20 yards behind my hives this year. and loads more in the other direction not to far away.

 

[drstitson]

"Plimsoll line anyone?"

not sure BUT King Den (around 2985 BCE) had a sandal label!!! (although i personally believe it was just a mortuary name tag).

 

[drstitson]

"Bees have tendency to go to nearest flowers. They do not spread evenly on field, far from that."

perhaps someone could try mounting hives on rails around the perimeter of fields and then every night vibrating the hives strongly to disorientate the bees and then moving the hives along the rails.

 

[chrismcd]

And I still have an uneasy feeling about spray residues on pollen going into honey. Without flaming does anyone have any neutral references (not funded by either the manufacturers or the "other wing")? Thanks.

You may find this of interest, especially page 12. Looks like just about all the "great and good" amongst the German universities helped write it!

http://www.nassenheider.com/files/nachrichten/bienenmonitoring_genersch.pdf

It is going to take me a while to digest it, but the impression I get is that there are no special surprises in the pesticides detected.

As you would expect, there are bee medicines (coumaphos, tau-fluvalinate) - but I find the high occurrence of Thiacloprid and methiocarb (slug killer) a bit more worrying since I suspect these are both seed dressings.

What does surprise me is the low level of foliar spray pyrethroids like lambda-cyhalothrin, since I would assume that German farmers spray pyrethroids on rape close to flowering.

From a UK point of view, there does not seem anything to get too worked up about since our wetter climate tends to make seed dressings break down faster. Nice to know someone is doing some work in this area - does anyone have any info on the UK situation

 

[Finman]

.
Here we go again!

Couple of days ago we learned the polyhives are poisonous.
Now, rape pollen is poisonous and honey.
Have you noticed that bees are poisonous? That we knew allready. Never mind.
plastic jars are poisonous.

Just, from where we get antipoison? There are good markets over there.

 

[chrismcd]

Hey Finman,

It is no big deal - the Germans are doing their usual extra-thorough job and it does not look like there are any problems.

Looks like good news to me!