>>The individual bees soon learn to get to the nectar without tripping >>the flower, thus they have somewhat limited usefulness for alfalfa >>pollination unless large numbers of bees are employed per acre. >> >[snip] >> >>Alfalfa does not contribute much pollen to a honey sample because >>of the aversion of our bees to the trip mechanism. Therefore the >>percentage of alfalfa honey produced is underreported. Nonetheless, >>without alfalfa, I would not have much of a crop. >> >>Regards >> >>Allen > >I stand corrected - somewhere I knew that they would still take nectar, but >my brain neglected to remind me of the fact before I posted. I *try* not to >give misinformation, really I do... >Mea culpa, > All of the discussion about bees not working alfalfa may sound good on paper, but when I was keeping bees in Oklahoma I had very good experience with alfalfa honey production. I did some migratory work for a few years by taking about 50 colonies to western Oklahoma after most of the clover honey had come in arount the Tulsa area. I put those 50 colonies on about 80 acres of alfalfa that was being grown to produce seed. The farmer reported to me that his production of alfalfa seed tripled when I started bringing bees to his farm. My usual production of honey from that project was about 75 pounds per colony. I forgot to tell the bees that they were not supposed to work the alfalfa. Aloha ------------------------------------------------------------ Donald Tinker On the Big Island of Hawaii HCR2 Box 9563 (808) 982-7611 Keaau, HI 96749 [log in to unmask] http://www.ilhawaii.net/~hilodon ------------------------------------------------------------