Peas, any good?

[funfly]

Quick question from a newbee.

I have heard that honey bees can't forage that well from peas but can from beans, is this true or is it the other way round?

Regards

 

[hedgerow pete]

bees will work field beans and as such broard and runner beans but pea flowers are to deep for them to properly work they can if they want bite a small hole in the flower base to obtain the nectore

 

[funfly]

Many thanks, quite a lot to this beekeeping marlarky.

 

[Poly Hive]

Reputedly bees cannot work beans and as mine are currently doing nothing surrounded by acres of field beans I now believe it to be true.

PH

 

[oliver90owner]

Most field beans will have flowered and moved on to seed pod development by now, surely?

It is a well observed that the outer stretches of large bean fields yield heavier crops than the centre regions due to insect pollination. My bees certainly get moved to the beans after the OSR, if possible.

Regards, RAB

 

[bobandbec]

Certainly all the field beans round me are now past the flowering/nectar giving stage.

Peter

 

[Poly Hive]

The beans are of course now past the flowering point.

The point I was making is that my hives have been "on the beans" as in some 50 yards from a large field and have produced nothing. Nor did I expect them to do so as beans are not a crop bees really benefit from though I did once hear a story that a crop of honey dew was achieved off beans.

PH

Please google it.

 

[marcros]

I remember reading or hearing that honey bees could only work field beans once bumblebees had bitten a hole on the bottom of the flower. Whether there is any truth to this, I do not know.

 

[OXFORDBEE]

Hmm ... I beg to differ on the field bean front....

I've had a good year when the bees managed to get quite a lot of field bean honey and it tasted like the field bean fragrance. Very "perfumy" and delicate. Blended with rape it was very nice, or so everyone told me.

This year I could see the bees working the field beans for nectar on two separate fields, although I am not expecting a good yeld from it as there was too much spring sown rape and charlock about. I understand that field beans like limes and hawthorn are fussy plants and don't give good yields frequently.

 

[Finman]

.
Once i had hives aside 6 hectares pea and i saw 2 bees in flovers. I have not seen bumblebees neither in peas.

 

[jon]

Mine work the broad beans on the allotments but they don't bother as much with the peas.

 

[Hombre]

Field beans, not a lot of nectar, compared to say rape, but the quality is reputedly second to none. A mainly field bean honey is apparently very nice product indeed.