Flowers for Bees...

http://www.verdefarm.com/
I'm hooking up with Verde Farm today for Farm Friend Friday.

I've been asked what is the best flower(s) to plant for honey bees. First of all, it depends on the zone you live in. I live in Zone 5. So the best thing you can do is research 'nectar' plants or 'honey bee' plants in your own area.

I would like to take the opportunity to talk about weeds. Yes weeds. Remember when you were a child, running through the grass, and you'd get stung by a bee on the bottom of your foot? You'd run in the slammy screen door, crying, because you got stung by a bee! That is, if you are around 45 years of age or older. Well, you weren't actually running through the grass, what you were running through was clover. Remember all the white clover you used to see on lawns? Somewhere along the way, people started having totally manicured lawns. Nothing but grass. And to make their lawn full of grass, they would kill any "weeds" with chemicals. And clover is considered a weed.

Since I've become a beekeeper, I've asked my Shug to stop using chemicals of any kind on our lawn. We replaced the grass in the front yard with Ivy. We have large trees in our front yard and grass wouldn't grow there anyway because there was too much shade. Now we see little bunny families in the ivy, we see honey bees all over the clover, and out at our land in the country we see this.....


Look closely and you'll see honeybees all over these plants.


I don't know what they are but they bloom the same time that goldenrod blooms.

And honey bees love goldenrod, but they'll pick this plant over goldenrod.
This grows like a weed. It's everywhere in the fall.

And one year our entire acerage was covered in Queen Anne's Lace. I told my Shug do NOT bush hog this down. He's a good Shug :) Besides the fact that it's beautiful...

and looks lovely in a blue ball jar on the table,

the honey bees love it.

Sorry about the blurry photo, the camera actually focused on the plants surrounding the one with the honey bee on it.

I want you to think about something this week. What bird, animal, or insect do you see benefitting from grass? And how healthy is it for us, to have perfectly manicured lawns? Do you ever notice after someone has their lawn done professionally, there will be little signs in the yard telling you not to walk in the yard. And keep your pets & children out of the yard too. (you have no idea how hard it is for me not to do an entire post about this...so I'll stop here!)

I would like to mention, however, that if you spray your yard or lawn with chemicals to get rid of pests, you kill good bugs and bad bugs. Chemicals don't distinguish between the the good, the bad, or the ugly! They kill them all, including honey bees :-(

Cindy Bee