Not an answer to the bee specific question but some comments on the radish.
When did they plant and how large is the acreage? Most radish being used for tillage is an oilseed and if temps dip and stay low you may not see a flowering at all. Now if they temps do not dip into the mid-20s for a period of time you may see bolting and flower the first warm spell coming out of winter. We are planting more acres in tillage radish than ever before and co-croping it with clover. We are only doing six acres though, right next to our six acres of late planted buckwheat. Not much compared to some of the larger farms out there experimenting with the same thing but I am excited about it.
It all depends on where you are and when it was planted. I normally see our food crop radish flower in late spring (including the oil seed which we use as both a cover crop...and micros).
Wild Brassica blooms around us in the form of mustards are heavy with bees over clover a lot of times. That is a mid-spring crop for us and usually in the flood plain, pasture, and road ditches.
Richard Stewart
Carriage House Farm
North Bend, Ohio
An Ohio Century Farm Est. 1855
(513) 967-1106
http://www.carriagehousefarmllc.com[log in to unmask]
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