Planting for Bees

[Erichalfbee]

Supermarket car park planting is getting quite bee-friendly too.

 

[Finman]

.
I like Verbascum species. They bloom long time 2-3 weeks and give pollen to beees. It is nice to look them.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Blimey!!!!
I have a few Mullein in the field next to the apiary but nothing like that one.
What variety is it?

 

[Finman]

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That mullein in the picture is perennial Verbascum nigrum.

1983 I took nigrum seeds from Yogoslavia and plants were 5 times bigger and they bloomed 1 month later than Finnish. They crossed and after 30 years I have lots of versions.

But that in the picture is not mine.

 

[BrianO]

Holy God ... The day of the Triffids !!

Great pic !

Yet another one to add to the seed list

 

[richardbees]

Flowers are all very well but in the UK the best planting for honeybees has got be Lime trees, many different varieties that will give a flowering period over 6 weeks.

Imagine Finman's verbascum flower fifty times higher!!

 

[Finman]

Flowers are all very well but in the UK the best planting for honeybees has got be Lime trees, many different varieties that will give a flowering period over 6 weeks.

Imagine Finman's verbascum flower fifty times higher!!

If you are yourself alive any more then.

During first 10 years bees get practically nothing from those planted lime trees.

That Verbascum is 1.5 m high. So lime tree will be 70 metres. .... the botany lesson..

 

[Erichalfbee]

Also Lime doesn't yield much some years?

 

[Finman]

Also Lime doesn't yield much some years?

Hmm. YOu need some extra money that you can buy the property where you put the lime plantation.

.

 

[bontbee]

The Bee Tree is a common name for Linden/lime/Basswood...all the same come from Tilia genus

That's the trouble with common names - the "bee tree" Euodia/Evodia/Tetradium isn't the same as the "bee tree" Tilia. The trouble for us laypeople is that, even if we get to know the latin name for a plant, often as not, by the time we look for it again, the taxonomists will have given it a new name!!

Flowers are all very well but in the UK the best planting for honeybees has got be Lime trees, many different varieties that will give a flowering period over 6 weeks.QUOTE]

As EricA above, Tilia limes aren't reliable producers, whereas in the last three years that I have known of a large Tetradium, it has been buzzing every year July, August and even into September. (And many years before that, according to the landowner - who is now a beekeeper too).


PS Fab Verbascum, Finman.

 

[mbc]

Location is important too, lime trees can be very good in the Thames valley but next to no good( in my experience) in west Wales.

 

[alldigging]

https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/plant-trees/
Free trees from woodland trust.
Not sure how many would be useful for bees though.

 

[Erichalfbee]

The single most important tree here must be the Sycamore then the old oaks which bear ancient Ivy.

 

[mbc]

The single most important tree here must be the Sycamore then the old oaks which bear ancient Ivy.

Not every season, sometimes it would be willow, others Hawthorne, it's not every year we get a sniff from the sycamore.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/plant-trees/
Free trees from woodland trust.
Not sure how many would be useful for bees though.

they do a pollinator pack in Wales (subsidised by Welsh government) with a mixture of pollinator trees for the whole season - i should have thought it would be the same for the rest of the UK

 

[BeeBeeKa]

I wonder If anybody tried to negotiate with their local Forestry re. Planting out bee-friendly trees and shrubs. Personally I would not mind to pay a reasonable rent for an opportunity to set my hives in the middle of a mixed spices forest, consisted of the following: willow\ sycamore\ chest nut tree\rowan\ hawthorn\ white thorn\ holly tree\ elder\ lime tree... It`s Forest of my dream It would give me a certain honey crop up until the august, no matter how bad some periods of weather conditions could be. Then I would move to heather moors, and back to forest again for the final Ivy accord .”Dream On, Dream On”
Music break
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh-wIGotGBE

 

[richardbees]

Finman

I was refering to public plantings and I'm quite sad that you comment Lime trees take 10 years and If you are yourself alive any more then.

Most of the tree plantings in London were planned for how they will look in the future and their ecological value e.g. the classical street Plane trees were specifically planted to remove soot/pollution from the air which no longer exists.

and Pall Mall would not be so imposing if it was lined with Verbascum...

 

[Dishmop]

If you want to plant for your bees.........put the plants somewhere else other than near your hives..

 

[Finman]

Finman

I was refering to public plantings and I'm quite sad that you comment Lime trees take 10 years and If you are yourself alive any more then.

...

Stop drinking first

I meant to wrote that if you are alive when the lime is 50 times higher (70 m high).

Our oldest tree plantings were meant to "fire wall", to limit flames, if town is burning. No one knew about ecology in those days.

 

[BrianO]

Try this ...

A cracking plant, planted 3 late last Autumn and before I could get them in had my bees on them...

Late flowering so really useful, dramatic flower stems of Blue Purple, long flowering, winter interest through silver stems.A fantastic all rounder !!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/howtogrow/3344954/How-to-grow-Russian-sage.html