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If you want to keep bees, plant plenty of food sources around your property.
BY SUSAN M. BRACKNEY
Timing — and, namely, timely access to good food — is everything to a honeybee. “Pollen is the honeybees’ protein source, and nectar is their carbohydrate source,” Amy Vu says. Vu is a state specialized program extension agent with the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Honey Bee Research and Extension Lab.
Ideally, you should offer a mix of pollenand nectar-rich trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals that will flower in succession. That means providing some food sources that will pay dividends for your hives long into late fall and still others that will serve them during very early spring.
“Just as people need a balanced diet, we try to get a balanced diet of pollen and nectar resources for the honeybees,” Vu says. “That helps them to do just about everything in the colony. They make wax and honeycomb. They feed the brood in the colony. There are lots of things that they do with those nectar and pollen resources.”
For queen bees, that includes laying eggs to build up the requisite population numbers to take full advantage of the coming nectar flow. And, when it comes to pollen, it’s not just the quantity of available sources that matters. Quality counts for a lot, too.
POLLEN POWER
“Those pollen sources that are rich in essential amino acids are really going to be the most useful for honeybees,” says William Kern. Kern is an associate professor in the department of entomology and nematology at the Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center of the University of Florida.