Randy,

Yes, working alfalfa bloom is a learned behavior:  the bees “do best at
20%-25% bloom” (Berg), yet alfalfa offers a poor nutrition for the bees:
when they work exclusively on alfalfa, the colony strength weakens in both
field and lab studies because of the poor alfalfa pollen.  It has also been
observed that the learning period takes about “no more than half a day
before the new field bee learns to avoid the stigmatic process by becoming a
side nectar collector” (Berg 3).

One of my yards is surrounded by alfalfa fields, and when I visited the yard
yesterday, knowing the legume was in full bloom and the grower did not have
time to bale, I could not find any bees in the bloom although other
pollinators, especially butterflies and other native bees, were everywhere.
 The temperature was 91 F at 2:30 in the afternoon, but I could not find any
bees although I walked into the field to find some since I always enjoy
finding my bees working the bloom (hey, there’s my bee!), but the bees were
sitting around the boxes, picking their nose.  

However, only a few weeks ago, in worse heat, the same colonies were all
over the flowers in the same field.  The only thing I could think about the
situation was that the bloom has peaked, starting to fizzle away; hence, the
bees did not feel attracted to it any more.

What are your observations on this?

Yoon

             ***********************************************
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