--- quoted material : Planting forage for bees seems to be economically un-feasible.... Adam -- = --- more quoted material --- 2 years ago i had the field around our house, buildings, and my hives in New Hampshire ... Rick Haver > Thanks for the feedback. As Rick stated here in the NE a field of trees basically are the natural course of things for a block of land left to itself for a few years. I have two hives in my back yard, strictly as a hobby and not an income or honey production resource. I just like working with bees and other connections to the ecology (I'm one of "those neighbors" that has an inhabited bat house in their yard too.) > I moved into my house 11 months ago and have been trying to replace as much of the high maintenance grass lawn and yard with more sustainable, and in my viewpoint -- attractive, landscaping. For those that are not familiar with the Northeast soil we have conifers everywhere (usually white pines) which help make our rocky soil nice and acidic. Summer's heat turns our lawns from rich green to a sandy brown every August (unless you irrigate heavily) just as the Red Socks start fading from contention. > I my quest to replace as much grass as possibly (thereby limiting the time I have to spend behind a lawn mower ) I plan to roto-till a lot that currently has compacted soil with very sad looking grass and replace it with something that is more tolerant of hot/dry spells. Since I am replacing the grass anyway I would like to replace it with something that the bees could possibly take advantage of, if the choose. Hence my original question about clover seed. > One final note: The reason you may see more bumbles than honey bees in a particular flower species is (at least I think I heard this somewhere) that some flowers are inaccessible to honey bees, while bumble bees can forage in these same plants with no problem. I think I heard that red clover was more accessible to honey bees than say white clovers. This may be totally wrong, don't even ask where I heard it as I can't recall. But I was just wondering if folks had heard similar stories and if anyone know of a clover (or similar green manure crop) that was attractive and that honey bees could use (if the ladies choose to of course). > Finally I have been using the plastic ANP comb, replacing all the wax foundation I had earlier this spring. The bees seem to accept the ANP well and are moving along. I don't know if it really deters mites as its marketing literature states but if nothing else it saves the bees having to use honey to make wax to fill out cells of wax foundation. I'm sold on the stuff and would recommend it to others. > Thanks, jeff > [log in to unmask]