Honeybee Heaven

Two years ago we planted two acres of sweet clover for our bees.  It takes two years for this kind of clover to grow.   Our hard efforts paid off, as just about every bee we have has been to the clover field!  The sweet clover field is just buzzing with bees!   The plot of land is humming like a well oiled machine.   We also planted some crimson clover in there, too, and it is up and growing, but the bees prefer the sweet clover.  Clover makes the very best honey, so we anticipate an excellent tasting honey crop this year.  Bees humming in a sweet clover field is music to a beekeeper's ears! Do I also dare say it is the sound of "honey money"?  Besides the sweet clover, the bees are going for natural plantings now, too.  There are birdsfoot trefoil, dandelions, wild daisies, wild mustard and garden blossoms.  It is a regular smorgasbord for them.   Very soon there will be basswood blossoms and the bees really love that, too.
     Here are some photos of our clover field and some happy bees:

Two acres of sweet clover.   Our bees go crazy for this!

A close up of the sweet clover.  Most of it is about 4 feet high.

One of our bees working the clover blossoms.

Here are TWO bees working a clover blossom!

This is crimson clover.  When the bees are done with the sweet clover they will work on this type of clover.

Besides the clover, there is birdsfoot trefoil for the bees. This is the path going to the pasture where we have the sweet clover planted.  The whole path is lined with trefoil flowers.   This flower is their second favorite plant, and makes excellent honey.

Meanwhile, back at the hives, the bees are lined up at the hive entrance waiting to unload the nectar into the hive.  Note that we have a live trap set to catch skunks.  We've had problems with them lately eating our bees.