Clover for honey

This is wild white clover from an organic field.

Wild white clover is the clover that produces "Clover Honey". The bigger types are pretty much useless.

PH

Like this?

Uncut clover on our lawn..

We have lots of white and red clover in the field margins around the apiary.

I have not seen any bees foraging on it this year.

Maybe because the limes have been in flow, but this has now stopped.

How long will clover flower for?

The clover on our lawn has been flowering since May ... and will probably continue - subject to rain (lots today) until August.

Bumblebees like it. The odd honey bee but they have a huge range of choices here due to being mixed houses/pasture and woodland so the choosey ladies decide it's a bit inferior to lime or bramble or rosebay willow herb or HB...or poppies or phacelia or borage ..etc

my bees are sat on NZ white clover that are thickly covering about 150 acres.

when (if!) the weather is warm, larger hives collect a super in just over a week. last year when people were extracting and feeding their bees in late august\september, my bees were still working the clover.

the year before last, the bees were working the clover until nearly the end of september. (it was a nice warm september!)

my summer\autumn honey is very light and pale. Somerford Steve suggests its like 'breakfast honey'

Yes but doesn't it only give up nectar at a certain temperature? Which is bound to be warmer than it is at present.
White clover has sprung up all along a new bypass road near me, loads of it.

Swarm said:

Yes but doesn't it only give up nectar at a certain temperature? Which is bound to be warmer than it is at present.
White clover has sprung up all along a new bypass road near me, loads of it.

Click to expand...

18 deg C is in my head....doesn't mean it's accurate of course

Some of the old beekeeping books rank clover as the number 1 honey crop in the UK. My own bees certainly work it heavily on occasion but it lost it's number one spot when farmers turned to artificial fertilizer instead of clover to fix nitrogen in the soil.

I think it's as high as 24˚C

There is an organic farm with around 8 acres of red clover, the larger leafed variety.

Would it be worth moving the bees?

Is this not a good nectar provider?

My bees are currently working the cultivated large white clover. I was watching them a couple of days ago and they were all over it even though there are large patches of flowering bramble adjacent.

Peter

Foxylad said:

There is an organic farm with around 8 acres of red clover, the larger leafed variety.

Would it be worth moving the bees?

Is this not a good nectar provider?

Click to expand...

From what I understand, the red clover flowers are too long for the honeybee to reac the nectar, at east for the first flush of flowers. Once they are cut the new flowers are smaller so become usefull.

I've got some nice patches of white clover on my field. The bees work it when its much cooler than 24c but the warmer it is the more bees will be on it

I thought red clover is a bit like broad beans in that our honey bees can follow bumbles and feed where the bumbles have bored a hole at the base of the flower

As children we always picked the petals(?) out of clover and sucked them to get at the sweetness. I've always done it and never regarded it as odd till my husband gave me funny looks Am I the only one?!

This morning here in Ireland , the rain has stopped , the sun is out , bees at the back of the house are working both Blackberry & clover, there is a sweet smell in the air from the clover. I think its the soil temperature needs to be between 21-24 degrees for the clover to produce nectar , not the air temp. Today the clover smells sweet ( white clover & the bees are working it since 9.00 am ) Air temperature here is 18C now.
As for sucking the clover as a child ,I thought every country kid did that!

I thought every country kid did that!

Glad I'm not too weird then!