Increasing forage through foraging

[Zante]

Am I correct in thinking that if I place hives within range of a meadow that has a variety of flowers growing in the grass, that the amount of flowers is going to slowly increase over the years due to the bees' pollination?

 

[Finman]

Am I correct in thinking that if I place hives within range of a meadow that has a variety of flowers growing in the grass, that the amount of flowers is going to slowly increase over the years due to the bees' pollination?

No. Meadow is full of plants and hays tend occupy the meadow.

Plant system finds its balance in 4 years.

And there are many soil types in meadows, and soil rules the vegetation..
And the world is full of pollinating bugs without honey bee.

 

[Swarm]

You can have influence on what grows in a meadow and how well it does and grasses can be subdued to help.

 

[Zante]

You can have influence on what grows in a meadow and how well it does and grasses can be subdued to help.

The fields I'm thinking of are mown for hay every year, would that make any difference?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Yes,
we have planted yellow rattle and as a result there are masses more flowers. As well as an increase in Dandelions early in spring there is lots of Red and White Clover, Birdsfoot Trefoil, Knapweed, Vetches, Meadowsweet, Cuckoo flowers, Cowslips, Selfheal, and Oxeye Daisy.
Where there was nothing but tall rough grass there are flowers and Stan gets to play on his ride-on mower just in the Autumn.

The fields I'm thinking of are mown for hay every year, would that make any difference?

In which case you don't want rattle.
If you can do a cut in Early June you will encourage clover if it's already part of the sward

 

[Finman]

The best plants which do well on meadows, are worst weeds.

 

[linoleum bonypart]

Question is you overseed an established grass area with wild flowers

 

[Finman]

Question is you overseed an established grass area with wild flowers

That will not work.

Pants have allways overseed. One plant can make 1000000 seeds, but none will survive after germination

 

[Motobiman]

You can change the mix of plants growing anywhere over any area by judicious management, not cheaply though and takes some knowledge.

Farmers and Gardeners do it all the time and the bees will just be part of the ecosystem.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Question is you overseed an established grass area with wild flowers

No you have to get rid of the grass which outcompetes everything else

 

[Binge]

Question is you overseed an established grass area with wild flowers

I would have said yes, but it'll take time and effort and expense!
Is it silage, improved grassland, or hay?
If it's hay, you're half way there.

We've been working on an area in school, not big, length of the rugby pitch and about 5m wide.
It's all done by hand and we're two years in.
Twice yearly cutting and removing of grass.
We're now at a point that I'm considering seeding with meadow flowers.

 

[Finman]

You can change the mix of plants growing anywhere over any area by judicious management, not cheaply though and takes some knowledge.

Farmers and Gardeners do it all the time and the bees will just be part of the ecosystem.

I have done this 50 years.
. I know, that it works only in dreams. .

Key word is ecotype. You cannot grow wanted plant in wrong ecotype.

It does not just work.

Lets take a wild raspberry. One individual spreads in hayland, and another does not

So called "specialists", who does not even know what they are teaching.

Dry type ecotype:

- rocky soil
- sandy soils

- meadows under tree: Tree takes nutritions and water from smaller plant

- south bank: Sun weeds off low root plants
- north bank, totally different ecotype

- cultivated soil, which changes in a year or two
.

 

[foghornleghorn]

Fertiliser use and grazing/cutting interval will have the biggst impact on the sward.

 

[Finman]

.
There are many kind if meadows. Low dry or poor soil vegetation

Fat soil, where wanted plants must grow about 1-1.5 metre high, that they brake they way through hays. (Verbascum nigrum)

Abd nany other variations.

Everything derives from soil. Not from seed what you throw onto ground,

 

[Finman]

Fertiliser use and grazing/cutting interval will have the biggst impact on the sward.

That is farming or horticulture. Nothing to do with "meadow"

 

[Motobiman]

Of course soils and geography are important and suitable plants must be chosen if changes to the ecology of land are desired.

Farmland is farmland because of management techniques just as gardens are gardens for the same reason.

Man has been managing the mix of plants that grow on his land for thousands of years.

Forests are made into fields and fields into gardens and each garden is different.

It just takes time, money and experience.

 

[Motobiman]

That is farming or horticulture. Nothing to do with "meadow"

Thats just semantics.

Land management and replanting with suitable varieties can change the environment.

That's what man has been doing for thousands of years.

 

[Finman]

Thats just semantics.

Land management and replanting with suitable varieties can change the environment.

That's what man has been doing for thousands of years.

Carry on dreaming.... If is only only semantics, oh dear...... Bees cannot forage in semantics.

 

[Motobiman]

Carry on dreaming.... If is only only semantics, oh dear......

So how has natural forest been changed to farmland then?

How does the farmer or gardener for that matter change, from one crop to another at all?

Drawing a distinction between Farming and horticulture is just semantics, they are essentially the same thing.

Just down the road from me is a new vineyard of hundreds of acres that until a year or two ago was OSR.

That's how land is managed and crops changed.

Meadowland is just another form of land management.

 

[Finman]

.
EU officiers order in Finland, what kind of mixture of plant it should be in fields. Farmers get money from those "meadows". Mixtures are such that those plants never grow together in nature.

After one year those "scenery meadows" are full of worst weeds, and there are no original plants any more, even if they should be 3 years.


There are lots of theoretical knowledge about issue, but then in real practice, where it is then!.

It is a huge money transform system, and nothing else.