Aaron Morris wrote:

>Actually, that's backwards.  Buckwheat only produces nectar in the morning,
>so that's when the bees work the flowers.  The nectaries shut down with the
>heat of the days, and the bees become quite irritable when the tap shuts
>off.

    In our Santa Cruz Island research, we found that honey bees worked
buckwheat only until about noon.  However, native bees continued to
work the blossoms the rest of the day.

    We attributed that difference to the fact that honey bees are not
native and ill-adapted -- perhaps a tongue length problem.

    And, yes, the honey bees did exhibit "frustration" at about noon.
That's when we could easily convert them to visit our scented sugar
solution for bee lining efforts.

                                                Adrian
--
Adrian M. Wenner                (805) 963-8508 (home office phone)
967 Garcia Road                 [log in to unmask]
Santa Barbara, CA  93103        www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/index.htm

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