Tag Archives: foraging

Red maple bloom: Gather ye pollen while ye may!

Remember way back in this early post where I described a bit about what types of plants bees are attracted to in different seasons? Well, during “bee school” last year (an excellent course put on by the Orange County Beekeepers Association), one of the instructors talked about the red maple as being one of the earliest blooming trees in the area, and at the time I was pleased to note that there is a huge red maple in our front yard, and a lot more throughout the neighborhood.  Here it is this year in

Bringing home pollen!

When I went out first thing this morning (ah, who am I kidding, it was 9:30), I was thrilled to see a lot of bees returning to Hive 1 loaded up with pollen! I take this to mean that they are satisfied with the home I’ve provided and are going to fill the pantry? I tried to take a short video…it’s hard to get a good close-up. This is the best I could do. You’ll notice a bee fly in