Redbud in Bloom

The sight of purplish-red color splashed through the understory of the woods is a true sign of spring. Redbud trees are in bloom throughout the Mid-South. These small trees covered with pink or rose flowers are easily recognizable from a distance. They grow under the oak and hickory cover of the woods and along ditch banks and forest margins. Redbuds are propagated by seeds that hang in pods, and are distributed by songbirds and the wind. In suburban settings, the colorful redbud is a cultivated favorite for landscape plantings. Honey bees are attracted in great numbers to the bright pink to rose-colored flowers which cover redbud twigs, stems, and even trunks. Honey bees do not make a surplus of redbud honey, but the tree does provide a dependable source of both nectar and pollen at an important time when bees are rapidly expanding their colonies and need all of the food they can gather to feed the brood.

The redbud is a member of the important family of bee plants, the legumes. The legumes, or pea or bean family, includes many of the most prolific producers of nectar for honey. Many of the legumes are forage and food plants. Clover is a legume, as are alfalfa, peanuts, lentils, lespedeza, peas, beans, wisteria, and vetch. Like the redbud, a number of trees are legumes. Among them are the black locust, honey locust, mimosa, and Kentucky coffeetree. By pollinating the flowers of legumes, the honey bees play an important role in producing seed, and help produce food for humans as well as livestock and wildlife. The seeds of the legumes are contained in pods that resemble peas or beans. Many of the legumes also serve the environment by enriching the soil. Bacteria growing in nodules on the roots of legumes take nitrogen from the atmosphere and convert it in the soil to a usable form for plants to absorb. In this way these plants actually enrich the soil.

--Richard

Preparing for Swarming

Redbuds bloom, and beekeeping activity increases dramatically in April. The honey bee colony’s tendency is to reproduce itself each year by swarming, the honey bee’s colony-wide means of reproduction. Through swarming, they increase the numbers of bees and colonies in the area and spread their territory. We can’t stop swarming, but beekeepers can take some actions to decrease the amount of swarming that occurs. For the honey producer, a colony’s swarming means there will be no surplus of honey to be harvested for the year’s investment in maintaining the hive. When honey bees swarm, they divide the colony and roughly half of the colony flies away from the hive to build a new nest. A new queen is produced to continue the old colony, and the old queen flies off with enough bees to establish a new colony. While the act of swarming may only take a few minutes, the event occurs after about a month of preparation.

There are a number of factors which influence the bees to begin making preparations to swarm. Among these are the age of the queen, the number of eggs that she lays, and the strength of the pheromones that she secretes. Crowding of the brood nest is probably the most important factor in starting a colony to swarm. The beekeeper’s choice of the number of boxes used in the brood nest and how the hive is managed are important contributing factors affecting swarming. Honey bee colonies regularly replace their queen through a process called supersedure. When colonies in small hives supersede their queen, they often swarm. Colonies in large hives frequently supersede their queen without swarming. To me, reducing swarming is a great advantage of housing bees in large hives. Either two deep hive bodies or three medium hive bodies house a large brood nest. Click on today’s picture of a honey bee collecting bright, golden pollen from a redbud flower. The redbud tree is a member of the important bee plant family, the legumes.

--Richard

Redbud in Bloom

Along rural ditch banks and field margins as well as in suburban lawns an impressive pinkish red tree is now in bloom. Upon close inspection we see honey bees in great numbers amid the colorful blossoms along the twigs and branches. This is the redbud, a member of the legume or pea family. The legumes are an important family of bee plants which includes wild and cultivated peas and beans, vetches, clovers, alfalfa, lespedeza, wisteria, locusts, soybeans, and peanuts. The honey bees gather both pollen and nectar from the redbud at a time when large amounts of food are being consumed to feed the colony’s rapidly expanding brood nest. These bright red trees are a welcomed sight to both the bees and the beekeeper.
--Richard