Rimantas Zujus wrote:
 
> In August and especially in September, in heather blooming time, usually
> there is no nectar flow in area I keep my bees. Then I watch my bees
> attending our berries left on bushes and on soil. Those berries are as
> follows: plums, gooseberries, raspberries. The bees usually attend the
> sweetest ones at the time.
 
Our bees are normally many kilometers away on the coastal heather
moors during August and early September. If we have one or two weak
hives they stay at home in the garden - as pointed out there are very
few nectar plants (here) at that time. We were very surprised to find
that the interior of the two hives kept at home last year were bright
yellow and smelled distinctly of plum. We then remembered that there
had been bees as well as wasps on the fruit whenever we wanted to pck
some. As the hives seemed to have collected/processed a fair number
of frames of plum juice we extracted them and ended up with 10kg of
golden plum flavoured "honey" that is highly prized by the whole
family -- especially nice on plain old vanilla ice cream!
 
Tony in mid-Norway