Dear Mary:
        Your new bees can have different ideas from yours, on their own food.  In
facts they will seek their  feed in a radio of some two miles as of your
backyard  and if the things do not go very well, the radio can very well to
arrive to the four or five miles.
        One of the most rewarding and usefully task in the beekeeping is doing an
inventory of trees, plants and flowers in that radio.
        The eucaliptus is a tree specially good for bees, and different varieties
(there are about 500) will flower at different months of the year.-  In my
area, eucaliptus is by far the most important source of floral feed for bees.-
        by the way, I would like hear something about the buckfast bee.  We work
here with apis mellifera mellifera.-
 
        Good luck and enjoy your new activity.
 
 
 
        Carlos Aparicio
 
 
 
At 11:17 PM 15/11/1997 -0800, Patrick & Mary Caldwell wrote:
>Hello all...
>
>I am a "newbee" who will be starting my first hives (Buckfast) in the
>Spring here in Northern California (northeast San Franciso Bay area).  I
>will be putting the hives in my backyard, which isn't very large.  Even so,
>I have a pretty nice garden, and have taken a great deal of care in
>selecting plants that will attract bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, etc.
>
>There are a lot of interesting plants in our area (we have star thistle not
>too far away on the local hills,