a few tidbits
Shown below are the stencils steps used in painting up a hive for the honeybees at The Finson Farm in Southern Maine.
I used spray interior/exterior Rustoleum Ultra Color gloss spraypaint. I’ll let you know how it hold up to the elements next year…
The Sausalito-based Sibbett Group created a series of interconnected gardens with such names as “Honeycomb Hideout,” “Nectar Nook” and “Pollinator Patch” to win the international bee-friendly garden design competition, a gift to the University of California, Davis, from Häagen-Dazs.
In October I went to an interesting talk at the Cumberland County Beekeepers Association. It featured a retired Biologist (and beekeeper named Matt Scott) who spoke about “Bee Pasturage” and had a slide show that showed a number of the different examples.
He also shared a number of publications that he thought would be helpful to beekeepers in identifying local flowers, etc..
What I found most helpful was this chart (below) that he passed out (and said was fine to use as long as he was attributed) called “Range of Maine Honey Plant Blooms” – basically, it is what honeybees want to “eat” and when they want to eat it, in Maine. I hope to be able to get some of this stuff planted for my first hives, this Spring.
