George,
 
If you look up you will see red maple is in bloom - we have bloom
in north central North Carolina a full six weeks early this year
because of warm December temperatures.  Since you are south of us
I assume you have it in bloom too.
 
Bill Lord
Louisburg, NC 27549>
>George Clarkson asks:
><Does anyone know what my bees might be finding as a food source
in
>mid-January in central South Carolina.  On days when it warms up
enough they
>are quite busy coming and going and a lot of them are coming in
heavily
>loaded with pollen.<
>
>>On colony I checked has stored about 2 deep frames of honey in
the last 2-3
>weeks.<
>
>    Do you have any canola near you? That would be starting about
now.  I
>raised queens one year on 300 acres of canola.  That was a year
when we had a
>frost every few days that killed back bloom and set back the bees
each time.
> But the canola was completely unaffected by the frost.  They were
some of
>the best queens I've ever gotten.  Lots of nectar and very high
grade pollen.
>
>    Down here near the coast, the bees are working wild mustard
furiously
>(really a wild radish, the botanists say, but that's its popular
name).
> That's good for pollen (yellow) but not very much nectar.
>
>   Today I saw one very strong hive that has put in about 15
pounds of
>nectar.  But others in the yard had only a little.  I haven't
looked at the
>maple flowers, but it could be the beginning of bloom.  I've seen
it blooming
>by the 20th.  We haven't had much winter.
>
>Hope it keeps coming!
>
>[log in to unmask],   Dave Green, Eastern Pollinator Newsletter,
PO Box 1215,
>Hemingway, SC   29554
>
 
 
--
William G Lord
E-Mail  : wglord@franklin
Internet: [log in to unmask]
Phone   : 919-496-3344
Fax     : 919-496-0222