You think you Yanks are having an early spring. I understand it never stopped
in South Texas (thats south of Del Rio and San Antonio).  Anita Collins in
the Rio Grande Valley said she was getting swarms in December.  And its been
wet.  A beekeeper friend in Kerrville (central Texas) said he'd measured
22 inches of rain this year by mid February.  The average annual total is only
28 for that area.  Our rains last Christmas are legendary.
 
But the sun has been shining for a few days now.  Dandelions, elms, henbit (or
 dead nettle), ornamental quince, and ornamental prunus spp. were blooming since
mid January.  Now the redbuds, cottonwoods, oaks, peaches, chicksaw plums, and
ashes are in full bloom.  Its sunny and 70 degrees.  Not that I want to make
you envious.
 
Our earliest pollen plants are dandelion, henbit and elms.  Dandelion pollen is
golden, elm pollen is pale yellow.  Henbit I have no idea.  A pink pollen is
put out by spring beauty, which is a little white flower that blooms early
 on golf courses.  It has conspicuous scarlet veins. The pollen in the bees
baskets tends to be a salmon pink but is quite distinct.  The latin name is
Claytonia virginica in the Portulacaceae.  It was blooming in mid February as
far north as Wichita Falls on the Red River.
 
Yes, it is a wet, early spring in Texas and we will build a gargantuan feral
Africanized honey bee population ready for delivery at our borders sooner than
previously anticipated.  Cheers.
 
==========================================================
Merry Makela                  |   [log in to unmask]
Knowledge Engineering Lab     |   Department of Entomology
Texas A&M University          |