Hi folks! I usually hang out on the daylily forum, as we have a licensed nursery for daylilies. My hubby and I got our first two hives a couple of days ago and I'm working to enhance their foraging experience. They will have plenty of pollen from the daylilies, but I have been trying to give them nectar-rich annuals, biennials and perennials as well. From reading a little, I suspect my little pollinator meadows/gardens are too close to the hive, but that's life. I wasn't giving the bees enough credit.

What are y'all's favorite bee-friendly flowering plants? I just ordered some crimson clover seed. Does sweet yellow clover become invasive in Tennessee? Our bees will have a base of blackberries, honeysuckle, white clover, yellow poplar... hoping we have a few sourwoods nearby. I love that I am looking at weeds differently now- from enemy to friend, at least for some of them.

@plantcollector we are in Maryville on the Seymour side, so probably not too far from you. It was a tough winter here. I hope your girls are doing ok.

yea for bees

I too look at weeds in a new light when I see the bees loving the weeds

@Hembrain I did lose some bees over the winter more than I would have liked. I'm working on making up for my losses I've made 25 splits and I'm now waiting for Queens to come back from their mating flights. You are very close to me I live right off of Chapman Highway on Whites School Road. If you ever want to talk bees or come by and look at some hives you're more than welcome just give me a holler.

I do not have hives but do know that bees love dandelions, lungwort (pulmonaria), dandelions of course, delphiniums, hollyhocks, St. John's wort, and Caragena blossoms to name a few. Almost forgot aconitum, borage and foxglove.

tigerpaws said: I do not have hives but do know that bees love dandelions, lungwort (pulmonaria), dandelions of course, delphiniums, hollyhocks, St. John's wort, and Caragena blossoms to name a few. Almost forgot aconitum, borage and foxglove.

Thank you. So many dandelions, @tigerpaws! Too many! Resolving to get borage seeds and keeping a lookout for the others. I have plenty of foxglove seed and need to sow it for next year.

@gardengus My creeping charlie is going nuts this spring, and I see some of the bees are going for it. Right when I want to pull it!

@plantcollector I have been down that road as I used to live in S Knoxville. We are in Wildwood. Thanks for the visit offer- that would be cool and we might take you up on it. Hubby and I have lots to learn; among other things, will need to make a swarm trap plan down the road and it looks like you have that amply nailed. Sounds like you are well on your way to rebuilding your stock. Good weather should help.

Yeah.. I catch lots of swarms I've caught three this year but only one out of my swarm boxes so far. As far as the Sweet Clover goes I'm pretty sure it's not invasive I got some here and there on my property and the bees absolutely love it the more of that stuff you can plant the better.I think it's even better than that crimson clover.

plantcollector said: Yeah.. I catch lots of swarms I've caught three this year but only one out of my swarm boxes so far. As far as the Sweet Clover goes I'm pretty sure it's not invasive I got some here and there on my property and the bees absolutely love it the more of that stuff you can plant the better.I think it's even better than that crimson clover.

Nice! I just bought some seed for yellow and white sweet clover. I just love the look of crimson clover and want to use some as a cut flower too, so I have dual intentions in trying to grow it.

You can find a lot of articles on plants for honeybees in the Member idea section
Just search for Honeybees or my user name Mindy03 and you should be able to find them.

@Mindy03 A veritable treasure trove of articles! I had previously gone looking for them in the wrong place. Can't wait to read them!

I purchased this book shortly after getting bees and find it invaluable
I have learned so much
the first half is about identification of native bees
but the second half is on native plants shrubs and trees and what they offer, when, and growing conditions.....
...a double thumbs up in my ''book''

gardengus said:
I purchased this book shortly after getting bees and find it invaluable
I have learned so much
the first half is about identification of native bees
but the second half is on native plants shrubs and trees and what they offer, when, and growing conditions.....
...a double thumbs up in my ''book''

People really like it! It gets 5 stars on Amazon. Thank you, Cinda!

Flow time! Bloom is on, including yellow poplar. It has been raining and cool though.

They love the bush honeysuckle but they are going to waggle dance their little legs off when my nemesis the vining honeysuckle bloom! I often have felt like I was losing that war, but I guess the bees win! At our house there are new dilemmas and conversations about vegetative management this spring.

They get busy when the sun comes out. Bees are cooler than I could have imagined, y'all! YOU know.

Our "Beezles" are moving up in the world! We named the strongest hive Paul and the slightly-less-robust hive Ringo. A couple of weeks after they got their supers, they were busting at the seams already! It seems to be an exceptionally nectar-rich spring after all the rain we had over the cool months, and they have really put the goodies to use. Even though they had to create all-new comb, all the frames in the new supers are covered- with honey and some brood. (The queens didn't get the memo that they were meant to lay in the brood boxes and they have made brood in the supers. Time for queen excluders once they have moved back down.) Paul has some bearding action. Fanning and dehydrating honey, perhaps?



Have y'all ever seen privet look like this- like white lilac?

The vine honeysuckle and yellow poplars are blooming wildly, too. So today, the Beezles get extra space to put all that sweet stuff. Whew, at least for a little while!

I was concerned yesterday when our strong hive looked like this:

Where had they gone? This is how they had looked the day before:

I was sure they had swarmed as they had been a bit crowded before their recent expansion. But then we opened things up and

Whew! It's amazing how much a few degrees cooler with lower humidity reduces their hive entrance hangout behavior!

Lord have mercy! A new honey super every week? This is nuts flow!

I decided to try leafy designs to help us keep the supers straight.

I see the bees have switched over to clover, so the yellow poplar must be almost finished blooming. Look at the saddlebags of pollen!

It will be interesting to see how much nectar the girls are getting from clover and wildflowers. We will check the hives within the next few days to see how much they have filled up the new honey supers. Will we need ANOTHER round of supers? We'll see.

Awesome to see your bees are doing good it won't be long before you're harvesting honey

plantcollector said: Awesome to see your bees are doing good it won't be long before you're harvesting honey

When we checked a few days ago, there was not as much honey as we expected, so we'll see. How are your hives doing?

The bees try to gather sugars in the edging and diamond dusting of the daylilies! I thought they would go right for the pollen. That's good news for my hybridizing! Less competition for pollination.


Recent hive check revealed that our weaker hive, Ringo, has a TON of brood coming along and may surpass Paul the Mighty in a couple of weeks. Rootin' for the underdog. That said, their honey stash is pretty similar and looking good.