is Crimson Clover a good nector source

[John Adams]

Buckwheat makes a good ground cover or green manure.  An acre of blooming buckwheat can produce 10 pounds of honey PER DAY.



10 pounds per day.......good grief! it doesn't take long to fill up a super at that rate!

[don2]

Bees "will" work crimson clover, "If" nothing better is near by.
"Don't" ask for red clover when you buy the seeds. specify "Crimson" clover.

Look for "honey plants, not Bee plants
There are numerous Places where  there is information on Honey plants, including legumes.
The Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening being one. Your County Extension Agent is another one, if you have one of those. or the other.
Beemaster.com forum page is an excellent place :roll:

Partial list.
White clover is very good, blooms all season. clip high about once a month.
Alsike clover
sweet clover

I don't know whether they are speaking of crimson clover or not when they say sweet clover.
:)don2

[Countryboy]

Was thinking of mixing in a bunch of other stuff, as I really need two mixes in the orchard--one fairly shade-tolerant for under the trees and one more sunny.

I wouldn't mix anything in with buckwheat, because of how buckwheat grows.  3 weeks after planting, buckwheat will start flowering.  At 10-12 weeks, it is setting seed hard, and the number of blooms diminishes rapidly, but you will still have a few new blooms all the way to frost if you let it go.  Because of how fast it comes into bloom, many people will disk it back in 2 or 3 times though the summer so they get 2 or 3 good blooms from it. 

Most other plants don't have that fast of a bloom cycle.  If you mix stuff in, you either get one buckwheat bloom and one bloom of the other plants, or if you disk it in you get multiple buckwheat blooms and you wasted planting the other plants.

10 pounds per day.......good grief! it doesn't take long to fill up a super at that rate!

No, it doesn't.  Imagine how good it would be if buckwheat produced nectar all day long.  It only produces in the morning.  By noon, the bees will pretty much stop working it.  (In the morning hours, your fields will buzz. The first year I planted it by my brother's house, he stayed home from work one day.  He opened the garage door and was doing stuff in the garage, but he kept hearing a weird buzzing/humming noise.  He finally figured out it he was hearing the field 30 feet from the garage.)

In a good flow here, bees can fill a medium super a week.

Just keep in mind that buckwheat is a very dark honey (almost black), and it has a very distinct, robust flavor.  Some folks prefer a mild, light honey, and some folks really like the buckwheat honey.

[max2]

I'm not a farmer nor botanist, but here's what I've been told.

There is a red clover and a crimson clover. One can be worked by the honeybee, but the other is too deep for them to reach. It will be worked by the bumble bees, as they have a longer tongue.

Which is which, I can't remember. I'm sure someone will come along with a better answer.

Well, this is from my experience.
We put some Crimson Clover in with the mix and I can tell you, the bees are working it at the moment.
As we all know, Clover is a tricky one - even White Clover. The bees work it sometime and sometimes not. It depends on soil type, soils moisture, humidity, temperature and a lot more.

[Ben Framed]

Clover is a tricky one - even White Clover. The bees work it sometime and sometimes not. It depends on soil type, soils moisture, humidity, temperature and a lot more.

It depends on what else is blooming at the time. If they find something else in bloom they prefer more so than clover, they will work that instead.

[The15thMember]

That has been my experience as well, Phillip.  When the bees are on the clover it means nothing else is really blooming.