Woo hooo! The USDA awarded a SARE Partnership Grant to me and beekeeper Rachel Coventry of Curtis Orchards and Pumpkin Patch. We are thrilled to be able to study a pressing question for beekeepers on small farms: how do you get the bees to go where you want them to go?
When you begin beekeeping, you quickly learn that surprises are par for the course. When you think your bees are happy where they are, they decide to swarm. When you think the queen will stay in her two deep hive bodies, she decides to lay her brood in your honey supers. When you think the bees will love the buckwheat flowers that you planted just for them, they decide to go to the neighbor’s flowers beyond the hill.
Two years ago I planted the strip of buckwheat where my bees were sure to see it, almost in front of their door. But no. The delicate white flowers attracted every pollinator in the neighborhood, from tiny native bees to elegant butterflies, every pollinator that is except my honey bees.
Last year I tried again. One of the farms on which I have bees has a grove of perhaps 200 black locust trees. Black locust honey is very light colored with a wonderful flavor. It was all planned. The farmer called me excitedly. The bloom had begun! That night I placed two hives on the farm facing the grove. The thick perfume of the blossoms on the night air was heady and delicious.
A week and a half later I recovered my hives and extracted the honey. It was golden amber with a wonderful flavor. It won prizes in Illinois, Florida and the United Kingdom. But darn it, that’s not the point. It wasn’t black locust honey. How do I know? Black locust honey is light in color, almost colorless. My honey resembled liquid gold, too dark to come from the blooms of the black locust.
These are the kinds of observations that nurtured the idea of systematically trying to encourage honey bees to go to a particular flower. Rachel Coventry at Curtis Orchards agreed that it would be useful to place the bees at points around the farm and test their honey. She contributed her Italian bees, I contributed my Russians. To help us monitor the honey flows throughout the summer, our grant included funds to join the national program to monitor bee productivity, the Sentinel Apiaries program run out of the University of Maryland. We will monitor the honey production of our Italian and Russian hives using scales purchased through the grant to measure weight fluctuations at 15 minute intervals. We will also take samples of the pollen of our target crops and analyze the honey for pollen density.
And yes, we will try once again to capture the elusive black locust honey. This year we will place the hives in the middle of the grove, not facing it, and we will start a little earlier, just before the bloom takes off. The farmer is as excited as we are to try to persuade our little honey bees to go for the black locust. Thanks to the USDA SARE grant, we are prepared.
This product was developed with support from the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture — National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA-NIFA). Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed within do not necessarily reflect the view of the SARE program or the U.S. Department of Agriculture. USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.
View from the Hive 