--- quoted material :
 Planting forage for bees seems to be economically un-feasible....
Adam
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--- more quoted material ---
2 years ago i had the field around our house, buildings, and my hives in New
Hampshire ...
Rick Haver
 
>       Thanks for the feedback.  As Rick stated here in the NE a field of
trees basically are the natural course of things for a block of land left to
itself for a few years.  I have two hives in my back yard, strictly as a hobby
and not an income or honey production resource.  I just like working with bees
and other connections to the ecology (I'm one of "those neighbors" that has an
inhabited bat house in their yard too.)
>       I moved into my house 11 months ago and have been trying to replace as
much of the high maintenance grass lawn and yard with more sustainable, and in
my viewpoint -- attractive, landscaping.  For those that are not familiar with
the Northeast soil we have conifers everywhere (usually white pines) which help
make our rocky soil nice and acidic.  Summer's heat turns our lawns from rich
green to a sandy brown every August (unless you irrigate heavily) just as the
Red Socks start fading from contention.
>       I my quest to replace as much grass as possibly (thereby limiting the
time I have to spend behind a lawn mower ) I plan to roto-till a lot that
currently has compacted soil with very sad looking grass and replace it with
something that is more tolerant of hot/dry spells.  Since I am replacing the
grass anyway I would like to replace it with something that the bees could
possibly take advantage of, if the choose.  Hence my original question about
clover seed.
>       One final note: The reason you may see more bumbles than honey bees in
a particular flower species is (at least I think I heard this somewhere) that
some flowers are inaccessible to honey bees, while bumble bees can forage in
these same plants with no problem.  I think I heard that red clover was more
accessible to honey bees than say white clovers.  This may be totally wrong,
don't even ask where I heard it as I can't recall.  But I was just wondering if
folks had heard similar stories and if anyone know of a clover (or similar
green manure crop) that was attractive and that honey bees could use (if the
ladies choose to of course).
>       Finally I have been using the plastic ANP comb, replacing all the wax
foundation I had earlier this spring.  The bees seem to accept the ANP well and
are moving along.  I don't know if it really deters mites as its marketing
literature states but if nothing else it saves the bees having to use honey to
make wax to fill out cells of wax foundation.  I'm sold on the stuff and would
recommend it to others.
>       Thanks,         jeff
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