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Nectar Production for the Hungarian Honey Industry

This overview of honey producing flowers is geared towards apiculture in Hungary, but it provides details on some plants beekeepers in North America will be familiar with too.

It provides data on sugar concentration in the nectar from different plants and trees, as well as information in regards to optimal weather conditions and time of day for nectar production.

A few of the highlights for me:

Lindens (refered to as lime in the pdf) do most of their nectar production over night, and thus the bees visit it primarily in the early morning.

Black locust, produces best with highs above 25°C on humid days free of wind and rain, but raspberry can do well on cooler wet days.

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Quantifying variation among garden plants in attractiveness to bees and other flower‐visiting insects

There's lots of lists of flowers to plant to help the bees out there, but this is the first time I've seen a scientific comparison of the attractiveness of different plants.

Figure 3 from the paper seems to offer a quick glimpse at which types of flowers were the favourites.

I've been interested in agastache (anise hyssop), since reading praise for it in beekeeping literature a few years ago and because it's native to North America. This gives me a little extra incentive to try planting a little more of it.

I sent Mihail a question and he was quick to remind me that this study was only conducted in one area and results may vary in different regions. So you may want to take this research as inspiration to try setting up a test garden near your own bees and see how your results compare.