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Finally FLOWERS: wild plum and red bud, they are in every direction one looks and the bees enjoy.
What are they Van?
Jim Altmiller
Red Bud trees and Wild Plum trees The plum are white flowers, some wild plum are slightly pink and beautiful. Just full of nectar and pollen.
at the location our bees are at, wild plum is about that stage, too (prunus spinosa). dandelion should follow in a week, sweet cherry in a couple and winter canola will show first flowers in about 3 weeks, full bloom in 4 weeks a the latest. All of course varying alongside the weather-"flow".
so it seems, Arkansas and south-west Germany are somewhat simlilar in climate/phenology?
at my site in the Black Forest willows are in beginning/full bloom. wild plum is weeks away. no growing grass as yet. dandelion is hardly growing yet.
Van,
At first I suspected the pink flowers were redbud but they look too large for redbud. Are your redbud flowers large?
Jim Altmiller
Jim, the Red Bud are indeed tiny, very small flowers. Both pics are only inches away.
Happy for you. Where I live the clover is in full bloom. I am going to set up a couple of swarm hives. I already have one set up and am going to do one at my house. Have been a little hampered this week as the 3 year old has the flu.
Quote from: van from Arkansas on March 28, 2019, 09:44:46 AM
Jim, the Red Bud are indeed tiny, very small flowers. Both pics are only inches away.
Thanks. I really thought they were large flowers.
Jim Altmiller
Van, beautiful pictures of the flowers. Thanks for posting.
I find it interesting that my redbuds are on a similar schedule to yours, whereas so many other trees here are way ahead of your area. Our decorative cherries & plums are already finished, along with many others.
I have 3 varieties of redbuds. 2 are "bush" types, and 1 is large trees. The bushes started blooming 2 weeks ago, and the bees don't get too excited about them. The trees have a week to go, and it will be deafeningly loud under those trees once they do bloom.
Redbud just starting to bud, only open in sunny places. Service berry and maples are in bloom. Yay! :smile:
I'm starting 3 packages tomorrow and I had pulled 3 drawn frames out of my 2 current hives so they're each getting one
Caught a swarm yesterday and gave one of them to the swarm so I needed to replace it
Went into my existing hives and all combs were loaded with nectar
Let the games begin :cool:
I wish !!
As I type this we have 35 degrees and a combo of rain and SNOW out here in the Flatlands of Western IL..............
Wild plum has just exploded, in every direction I look. Trees have not leafed out as seen in pic.
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We call them Chickasaw or hog plums. Also one of our early bloomers here.
Quote from: Barhopper on March 30, 2019, 07:53:44 PM
We call them Chickasaw or hog plums. Also one of our early bloomers here.
Can you eat Chickasaw plums?
I never tasted one, the squirrel always get the plum before me. Yes, I believe they are tasty, but as I said, never tried one.
Darn squirrels. We have pecan trees at our house in Jacksonxille. The pecans never get to fully ripe before the squirrels get them.
Jim
Same here, I did eye a ripening plum on an outter very thin limb. The limb so thin, I thought a squirrel could not reach the plum. I thought finally I get a plum, only needed one more day to fully ripen.
Yep you guessed it, the next day the plum was gone.
We planted tomatoes, big mistake, the squirrel had a hay day. Made a complete mess. Oh well, I moved into their territory and I actually like the little critters.
I like honey bees a lot better, no mess, no bother, just pure enjoyment are my bees.
I have a neighbor who has a fairly large pecan tree and every year he will sit near it and pick off a dozen or so squirrels with a pellet gun and he still does not get any pecans.
Jim Altmiller
The seed is about as big as the plum. Sometimes sour, sometimes not as sour. In my experience.