Bee Forage

Why should the timing and success of a certain plants be important to beekeepers? 2015 the year of the snakeweed. Honey bees do not forage on snakeweed. And with the proliferation of snakeweed and the lack of late summer, August and September moisture, the chamisa, on which honey bees do forage, did not do well. This is very important for the honey bees which have to collect enough nectar and turn it into honey stores to be able to survive the northern NM winters. This lack of sufficient stores is why in the last several years many beekeepers have lost their colonies, including myself three years ago. To hopefully prevent this happening again I bought a gallon of local honey and began feeding them in October and some during the winter. They made it through the winter, although not in great numbers, so I am feeding them still until the queen begins to lay and produce more worker bees to start foraging on my recently blooming apple and peach trees and service berry and linden trees and naturally growing lupine and asters. Hopefully the queen will build up the colony enough that I can make a split, that is, make two colonies. This is how honey bees multiply, by making another colony.