Hi Mike I am in the Pacific Northwest. We get an early flow from the Oregon/Big Leaf maples, around early April, but due to weather issues it is not always reliable. Then we get hawthorn and finally in early June the big flow is the blackberry. Once the blackberry ends, there is little nectar around (unless your hives are in subdivisions with watered, mature gardens, as the hives in my back yard are...always my best honey makers!).

So, we have a long summer dearth after our single honey flow. We rarely get much of a fall flow. This is a small, formerly agricultural, bedroom suburb where the nearby fields are devoted to potatoes, corn and blueberries...and as development proceeds apace, we are losing nectar and pollen generating biomass. 

A large development is currently in progress and they have expressed interest in replacing any disappeared forage by focusing development plantings on season long nectar and pollen sources, which have the potential to increase forage biomass against what was present before development.

But...there is a lot of bee pressure on our local resources. The blueberry fields host hundreds of pollination colonies during the 6 weeks of blueberry bloom, and there are about 100-150 local bee colonies, mostly in back yards. Periodically, we get largish apiaries popping up, guested on local farms. As it is a reasonably poor honey area, they usually move on after a couple of years.

But for those of us keeping bees here, there is that long summer dearth to contend with.

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