what are your bees bringing in late July / August

[london_flower_guy]

what forage are your bees bringing in now?

After the recent heat wave allot of plants where I am in West London dried up. Bramble flowered earlier than normal this year, most wild flowers have keeled over in the recent heat and all the shrubs and trees are over also. Interested to know what folks bees are bringing in.

I suspect where heading into a long august gap

my wisteria is now in its second flowering but unlike the first flowering the honey bees are ignoring it.

what are they feeding on? Honey dew from aphids bottoms and garden flowers?

 

[Swarm]

Loads of Willowherb, bramble still in flower and of course, Balsam has come into flower.

 

[enrico]

Both the first two above but sadly not the last one!

 

[ringtor]

white clover, bramble,willowherb and balsam

 

[MuswellMetro]

what forage are your bees bringing in now?

After the recent heat wave allot of plants where I am in West London dried up. Bramble flowered earlier than normal this year, most wild flowers have keeled over in the recent heat and all the shrubs and trees are over also. Interested to know what folks bees are bringing in.

I suspect where heading into a long august gap

my wisteria is now in its second flowering but unlike the first flowering the honey bees are ignoring it.

what are they feeding on? Honey dew from aphids bottoms and garden flowers?

similar,

The london flow has stopped but a bit of lime still out north of the M25 where i have a few hives but other than that in London my bees are just collecting Water, i assume to dilute honey rather than cool the hive as it is only 18c

rather worried about taking off all the honey supers as i might have to start feeding immediately

 

[madasafish]

Loads of Willowherb, bramble still in flower and of course, Balsam has come into flower.

+1
Plus yellow pollen ? Dogwood?,sweet chestnut (lots around),field scabious (orange/.reddish pollen)

 

[Bob Bee]

Clover and Bramble are in full flower here....

 

[ichbinpaul]

A lot of potatoes are still in flower here.

 

[Bee-Key-Pur]

I don't think honey bees will take from potatoes, lots around me.
Mine are just finishing on linseed and phacelia, now on brambles...

 

[pargyle]

I live in the middle of the town - they are flying from 7.00am in the morning and still out now (nearly 9.00pm). There's still a wide variety of pollen coming in on about 20% of the bees - grey (field beans ?) and some a sort of pale pinky colour. The rest of them are bringing in nectar as there are some heavy landings but goodness only knows what theyare finding.

 

[Sandbee79]

forage

yes Balsam here. However I notice each year that it takes the honey's some time to find it as the bumbles are on it like a rash. Whether there's something else or they have to learn from the bumbles I don't know it's odd tho. All of a sudden they go for it. Also odd they enter the flower upside down and leave the same. I m in Southport by the way..lots of Balsam oh yeah.

 

[Finman]

.
In Finland yield period is now over. Wild flowers were 10 days ahead normal chedule. They will not make flowers any more. They will prepare for winter.
In some part of country yield stopped a month ago. Too dry or what?

Cutted red clover will bloom up to September. - unless it will not be cutted again.

We have quite much now bumblebees, but something has happened to wasps. They vanished during summer. They were plenty in spring but now nothing.

Now my balance hive shows zero. It is very dry now in my corner of country.
Hay has stopped growing. Temps have been 26C.

We have had douple amount of heat days up from May. Nature has been too quick and too dry to give good yield.

.

 

[Chris B]

Round here bees foraging a bit on bramble but hive weights going down! Brood boxes have virtually zero stores. Beware of starvation if taking supers off!

 

[crazy_bull]

A few days of borage left, after that very little.

 

[ellypatt]

Not much round here - the brambles were finished a week or so ago. Some later limes, and I'm hoping allotments and gardens will help fill the gap. Only seen a limited amount of balsam by the river.

 

[Minxpinx]

I've noticed a lot of bees on an Australian bottle brush tree and lavender today

 

[Roola]

I've noticed a lot of bees on an Australian bottle brush tree and lavender today

I was wondering whether there was much left in London now but my hives are still pretty active with plenty of pollen coming back... I'm guessing there's good garden forage around us.

 

[lilybetbee]

Lots of RB willow herb that's buzzing, brambles in full flower and HB for a few weeks yet, as well as garden flowers.

 

[Tom Bick]

Yes things have slowed somewhat in my neck of the woods but with the recent bit of damp it will pick up a bit for the bees and they will hold their own and make good stores for winter.

The trick is not to take all the honey and then get yourself into a situation of having to feed to keep them alive or removing all the honey in fear of not having the max as this can result in blocked brood boxes if a flow picks up only to damage the bees a few weeks down the road. Half filled supers are very handy at this time of year.

I am obviously referring to us hobby beekeepers the commercial beekeepers I know is a different situation and I bet the few we have on this forum will do similar.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

I was wondering whether there was much left in London now but my hives are still pretty active with plenty of pollen coming back... I'm guessing there's good garden forage around us.

Likewise this end of London (much better than N10 sounds), but I think some of the pollen is clover and they seem to be still finding bramble somewhere; who knows where.