In the Dead of Winter?

Honeybee on Winter Hazel

Hazel catkins laden with pollen

Most of the plants in my garden are chosen not only for their beauty but for their use.  In a bee garden this would include for food and a place to live and raise the next generation.  For this reason, I try to have something blooming  in each season.

This warm autumn, I enjoyed the crazy yellow and fragrant blooms of my Witch Hazel.  It was covered with small bees and flies enjoying the nectar but not my honeybees.  It is winter- January- but the days have been relatively warm and my bees are occasionally out flying and foraging.  What is there to eat in January?

Although most trees are bare of leaves, there are those that are beginning to bloom now- oaks, some maples, though you will hardly see these blooms as they are very inconspicuous.  Various other flowering bushes and trees are more showy and fragrant- Winter Jasmine (jasmine nudiflorum) with its bright yellow flowers, Winter Hazel, Hammamelis Vernalis- a cousin of WitchHazel and WinterSweet (Chimonanthus praecox) are just a few.  Their bloom times will vary a bit according to the weather but the warmth needed for blooms will invite the bees out of their hives to look for food.  The flowering oaks and maples will primarily be producing pollen and the others a mixture of pollen and nectar.

These winter blooms really are not enough to feed a hive that is just beginning to come back to life, with the queen getting ready to start laying eggs for the spring bees.  It is a time when beekeepers must make sure to be feeding their hives.  Those warm days encourage the bees toward greater activity and more consumption of their dwindling winter stores making this a precarious time of year for them- starvation becomes a real possibility.

Still, as winter moves toward spring, the snow drops, crocuses and hyacinths start peeking their heads up.  My growing washes of Winter Aconite will become full of drops of nectar, attracting my bees and helping them to replenish their stores of honey.  I will help them by feeding them a nectar-like, light sugar syrup fortified with essential oils of lemongrass and spearmint until they let me know they do not need this, until the spring blossoms are in full bloom.

Honeybee on Winter Jasmine