I am working in Moldova (Eastern Europe) again on a long term beekeeping
development project and this trip coincided with the Acacia bloom.  Acacia
is an invasive species here and is a native of the Eastern US where we call
it locust, also known as Robinia pseudoacacia.  My primary residence is in
the piedmont of North Carolina though I have a small house in the Blue
Ridge Mountains.  We have scattered stands of locust in both regions but it
is more dominant in the mountains where the rot resistant wood is prized
for fence posts.  In the mountains the locust foliage is usually devoured
by leaf miners and other insects by July and the trees don't look like
much.  The flowers are fragrant and attractive to bees but I have never
made single source locust honey in either location.

The acacia is in full bloom here now and it is impressive.  Hill sides,
road sides, and even city parks are covered in blooming trees.  The trees
are small but the flower clusters are much larger than the US varients I am
familiar with.  I visited a beekeeper Thursday who told me his scale hive
registered a gain of 5 kg on Tuesday and 8 kg on Wednesday of pure acacia.
The honey is super high quality and brings the best prices on the local and
European market.  It is interesting seeing an invasive species performing
so well here for beekeepers in part I think due to the lack of natural
enemies.  While there is a lot of locust here the country is down to 11%
forests, due in part to open grazing.  While it may look bucolic to see
herds of sheep and cattle and flocks of geese roaming the landscape with
shepherds and herding dogs, it is devastating for tree seedlings.  Couple
that with the massive hydrogeology modifications made to the entire
landscape during the communist times and there is very little 'natural'
land left here.  My project is working with the national forestry agency
MoldSilva on a $750 million reforestation project that looks to plant 40
million tree seedlings in the next few years.  In the meantime the local
bees are enjoying the acacia.

Bill Lord
Chisinau, Moldova
Louisburg, NC

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html