Phacelia tansy as a honey plant sown specifically for bees

Phacelia honey plant for beekeeping is a very useful plant, it is often sown in crop rotations, as a green manure crop, for livestock feed and for other purposes, while phacelia for bees is an excellent honey plant and pollen, with high honey productivity. There are decorative types of phacelia that will decorate any flower bed or front garden. In this article, it will be interesting for beekeepers to find out how much honey can be harvested from a hectare of phacelia, when to sow and what is the seeding rate of phacelia per 1 ha in kg for beekeeping, how many bee colonies are needed per 1 hectare of phacelia, phacelia with what to plant as a honey plant to improve honey collection, what planter to sow phacelia, how much time passes from sowing to flowering phacelia, and other nuances of agricultural technology of phacelia as a honey plant, how phacelia blooms and much more. Read to the end - it will be interesting!

Content

• 1 Phacelia plant description as a honey plant
• 1.1 Phacelia plant description
• 1.2 Phacelia for beekeeping
• 1.3 Phacelia honey plant useful properties
• 2 How to sow phacelia as a honey plant
• 2.1 When to sow phacelia in the spring as a honey plant
• 2.2 How to sow phacelia by hand in spring as a honey plant
• 2.3 Winter phacelia honey plant or winter sowing of phacelia
• 2.4 Phacelia as a honey plant
• 3 Phacelia flowering time, honey productivity, temperature
• 3.1 After how many days does phacelia bloom
• 3.2 Phacelia honey productivity
• 3.3 Phacelia nectar release temperature
• 3.4 How long does phacelia bloom
• 3.5 Phacelia as pollen
• 3.6 Video of phacelia on the shoreline, fills in the free period
• 4 growing phacelia as a honey plant mixed with other honey plants
• 4.1 Phacelia and bruise
• 4.2 Phacelia and sweet clover
  4.3 Phacelia and other honey plants
• 5 Phacelia honey

 

 

Phacelia plant description as a honey plant

Phacelia plant description

The homeland of phacelia is North and South America, there are about 130 species in the genus of phacelia, but we are interested in the tansy-leaved phacelia, originally from California, it is the tansy-leaved phacelia that is a honey plant that is extremely useful both for bees and for agriculture in general, is actively cultivated for green feed.
The stems of the phacelia are erect, branched, with unpaired pinnately dissected leaves, 80 cm or more in height. With rare sowing, phacelia plants reach 1 m in height with a large number of lateral stems. In young plants of phacelia, the stem is juicy; at the end of the growing season, the stem dries up and coarsens. The branching of the stem of the phacelia ends with many-flowered inflorescences - curls, in the inflorescences there are 20-40 flowers.
The vegetation period of phacelia is short (80-95 days) and it can be sown at several times, starting from winter and early spring sowings.

 

Phacelia for beekeeping

Phacelia tansy as a honey plant is an important plant for stationary apiaries, phacelia tansy is not only an excellent honey plant, but also a pollen plant.
Phacelia is sown both in pure crops and in mixtures with other crops to increase the honey base. Often, phacelia sown in several periods fills the free period and helps the bees prepare the colony for honey collection from sunflower and buckwheat.
Bees willingly visit phacelia to collect nectar and pollen throughout the day. Phacelia honey is considered a good varietal honey.
Phacelia for beekeeping is also important because planted in summer, it has the ability to bloom until late autumn, even with frost, until the end of the summer of bees. This allows the bees to grow young bees after the main honey collection and prepare the bee colony for wintering. Considering that phacelia honey does not crystallize in combs for a very long time, late honey collection from phacelia can replenish winter food and replace sugar feeding of bees.

Phacelia honey plant useful properties

Phacelia honey plant is also actively used as a fodder and green manure crop. Ensiled and fresh, phacelia is well eaten by cattle, sheep, and pigs. From 1 hectare of crops, 250 centners / ha of green mass of phacelia are harvested, and on well-moistened soils - 450-500 centners / ha. Phacelia hay is unsuitable for fodder. The nutrient digestibility coefficient is highest when fed as silage. Ensiling phacelia is best with plants containing a lot of sugars. For silage, as a rule, phacelia is mowed in the second half of flowering.
Plowing phacelia as a green manure is equivalent to applying 25-30 tons of manure per hectare.
Phacelia is recommended to be planted in the aisles of gardens, along the edges of forest belts, in order to attract entomophages, which reduces the loss of fruit and berry crops from pests. Also, the flowering of phacelia in gardens contributes to an increase in the pollination of fruit and berry crops and an increase in yield by 25 - 30%. Similarly, for pollination of alfalfa, it is recommended to plant several (6-8) meters of phacelia mixed with sainfoin along the edges of the field.
Phacelia can be grown after harvesting winter rye, vetch, peas for green fodder, after harvesting early cereals for grain.
Phacelia is a valuable phytomeliorant that is capable of improve the structure, physical and chemical characteristics of the soil, being a good predecessor for any crops. It can be widely used in land reclamation.
In settlements, as a decoration in flower beds, in parks, in front gardens, it is recommended to grow bell-shaped and tansy phacelia, which are very beautiful.

 

 

How to sow phacelia like a honey plant

When to sow phacelia in the spring as a honey plant

Usually phacelia is sown simultaneously with early grain crops, but since the growing season of phacelia is very short, in spring it is possible to sow phacelia in two periods in order to create the longest honey flow for the bees.
So in the conditions of the Voronezh region, sowing phacelia in early spring, at the first opportunity, approximately in the II-III decades of April, and three weeks after the April sowing, carry out the second sowing in May. This will provide the bees with honey all summer. And sowing phacelia in June will create a honey flow until late autumn.
In places where linden blossoms intensively and there is an abundance of meadow forbs, the first spring sowing of phacelia can be done in May and the second in June.

How to sow phacelia by hand in spring as a honey plant

Many beekeepers, in the absence of equipment, are quite able to sow phacelia by hand. As a rule, phacelia seeds are scattered in handfuls so that there are no bald spots. The skills of sowing phacelia by hand are developed after 1-2 seasons. It is better to scatter the seeds on loosened soil and then close up with a rake. Sowing phacelia on virgin soil is ineffective.

Winter phacelia honey plant or winter sowing of phacelia

When sowing phacelia before winter, sowing of phacelia is carried out when frosts are set at 3-4 C Celsius so that seedlings do not appear in the fall. The soil in this case is prepared as black steam. In spring, winter crops of phacelia germinate quickly and are not damaged by any pests. With winter sowing, flowering of phacelia begins 2 weeks earlier than with spring sowing, which ensures earlier honey collection.
In Ukraine, when sowing phacelia in winter, it is possible to achieve that the phacelia will bloom about 10 days earlier than the white acacia. This is all the more important because phacelia crops can be used in areas where forest belts of white acacia are cut for firewood, and also given that the honey yield from white acacia is usually unstable and you can get good honey yield only once every 2 years.

Phacelia as a honey plant

Phacelia, as a honey plant, is undemanding to soil fertility and humidity, has cold resistance, phacelia can withstand frosts down to - 7-9 C. Phacelia seeds germinate in the dark. Sowing of phacelia is carried out in the period from the end of April to the beginning of July, planting the seeds to a depth of 2-4 cm. Light inhibits the germination of seeds, so it is necessary that the phacelia seeds be covered with soil. Phacelia sprouts on the 7th - 17th day.
Pre-sowing tillage is of great importance for phacelia as a honey plant. After plowing and harrowing, the soil should be cultivated with a cultivator with a leveling shaft. The soil before sowing phacelia should be lightly compacted (rolling is carried out). Phacelia can be sown with a seed drill, with a distance of 45 cm between rows or scattered. With row sowing, the seeding rate of phacelia is 8 kg of seeds per 1 hectare, and with a spread, the seeding rate of phacelia increases to 12 kg. To facilitate sowing, phacelia seeds can be mixed with dry sand. After sowing, the soil should immediately be rolled to ensure a better supply of moisture to the seeds. The first spring sowing in Belarus is carried out in March, autumn in early November.
Winter sowing of phacelia in the conditions of Western Belarus must be carried out in the first ten days of November, in this case the phacelia will bloom in June next year. After the flowering of phacelia, when the seeds ripen, it is necessary to peel the soil to a depth of no more than 10 cm, as a result, the phacelia in the same field will begin to bloom in September-October. At the end of flowering of phacelia in November, the field is plowed and left until spring, if friendly shoots of phacelia appear in spring, then no additional work needs to be carried out until the end of flowering.

In the conditions of the Ulyanovsk region, a plot for phacelia crops is placed in a crop rotation after spring crops or after fallow. After harvesting grain crops, the field is thoroughly cleaned from straw residues, and in the third decade of August or in the first decade of September, the field is plowed to a depth of 27-30 cm. Mineral fertilizer is applied only under the previous crop. Pre-sowing tillage consists in spring harrowing and cultivation to a depth of 5 cm. Seeds must be rolled after sowing. Sowing is carried out at an early date with conventional seeders using a 45 x 15 cm belt method, the sowing rate of phacelia seeds is 14 kg per hectare and is highly dependent on seed germination. Seeds are planted to a depth of 3-4 cm with good soil moisture by 2-3 cm. Wide-row sowing of phacelia provides good branching of plants, and a large number of phacelia flowers are formed. To obtain a more extended flowering period, sowing can be carried out in 2-3 terms.

 

Phacelia flowering time, honey productivity, temperature

How many days does phacelia bloom

Many beekeepers are concerned about the question after how many days the phacelia blooms, it should be noted that the period of flowering of the phacelia after germination strongly depends not only on the climate, but also on the variety. So the Ulyanovsk local variety blooms 55-60 days after germination and continues to bloom from 35 to 40 days. Other varieties are able to bloom after 40 days from the start of seedlings. Flowering of phacelia is delayed when the temperature drops, in rainy and cloudy weather. When sown in June and later, phacelia blooms 55-60 days after germination.

Phacelia honey productivity

In phacelia, blue-violet flowers have 5 stamens, which end outward with anthers and one pistil with a green ovary at the bottom. Phacelia nectar is secreted by glands around the ovary. Even before the opening of the flower, nectar is collected in the form of drops, which subsequently merge into a ring at the bottom of the flower. Phacelia nectar is well protected from drying out and bees easily collect nectar from phacelia even in hot weather. Therefore, it is good to include phacelia in honey conveyors in arid regions, phacelia in drought conditions is able to release nectar. Bees actively visit phacelia flowers during the whole daylight hours, the maximum visit of phacelia by bees is observed at noon. Phacelia nectar is dominated by simple sugars and contains many pollen grains. Nectar along with pollen attracts bees well. Experiments show that there can be up to 50 bees per 1 m2 on phacelia flowers at the same time, honey collection from phacelia can be 37 kg per bee colony in a very bad year. It is quite possible to get 100 kilograms of honey from 1 bee colony when creating a phacelia conveyor.
The highest productivity of phacelia flowers is observed in the period from June to the first half of July, when the conditions for the release of nectar are more favorable than at the end of summer and autumn. The nectar productivity of phacelia varies from the time of sowing and the area of cultivation.
Under the conditions of the Belgorod region, with wide-row sowing - 45 cm and top dressing with phosphate fertilizers, the nectar productivity of phacelia increased from 300-500 kg to 900 kg per 1 ha.
The nectar productivity of phacelia is higher at early sowings and amounts to 250-350 kg/ha, decreases at late sowings to 180 kg/ha and less. In the southern regions, the nectar production of phacelia is higher than in the northern regions, and reaches a level of up to 500 kg/ha.
Phacelia in the Oryol region is grown exclusively as a honey plant, the average honey productivity of phacelia is 236 kg of honey per 1 ha of phacelia crops.
In the European part of the country, in net crops, the average honey productivity of phacelia is 448.7 kg per 1 ha.
In the conditions of Polissya of Ukraine, phacelia of the early sowing period, allocates from 306.8 to 347.0 kg of sugar per 1 ha of crops. The nectar reserve of crops of phacelia sown in the later periods decreases by 2-3 times.
When sowing phacelia together with fodder crops, in the conditions of the forest-steppe of the left-bank Ukraine, the amount of sugar per 1 ha in comparison with pure sowing of phacelia varies from 201 to 388 kg, in a mixture of phacelia with peas it changes from 41 to 74.0 kg, phacelia with peas and oats varies from 75.2 to 86.6 kg or phacelia with corn varies from 32.0 to 70.3 kg. Phacelia can be used in many co-plants with other crops and as a stubble crop.
In the middle and southern regions of Russia, with clean crops, the honey productivity of phacelia is 150-500 kg of honey per 1 ha, the honey productivity of phacelia in the Central Chernozem zone of Russia and Ukraine is 300 kg of honey per 1 ha, the honey productivity of phacelia in Moldova is 400-1000 kg of honey from 1 ha, the honey productivity of phacelia in Central Asia and in the southeastern regions of Kazakhstan is 100 kg of honey per 1 ha, the honey productivity of phacelia in Western Siberia is 200 kg of honey per 1 ha, the weight gain of the control hive reaches 6 kg per day, in the forest-steppe In the Altai Territory, with clean crops, the honey productivity of phacelia varies from 150 to 300 kg of honey per 1 ha, the honey productivity of phacelia in the Far East is 180-300 kg of honey per 1 ha.

Phacelia nectar release temperature

Phacelia releases nectar at a temperature of 24-28 C, this is the optimal temperature for release of phacelia nectar, with sufficient soil moisture, this happens after warm night rains. With an increase in temperature to 30 C and above or a decrease to 16 C, the release of nectar by phacelia decreases, but does not completely stop. With this, phacelia flowers are indispensable for bees in dry years, when other honey plants do not produce nectar at all.
Phacelia flowers secrete nectar, containing 25-55% sugar in it, in the morning, up to 10 o'clock, the sugar content of the nectar is less, and from 14-18 o'clock the sugar content is greater. Phacelia flowers are actively visited by bees from dawn to dusk, but the greatest years of bees are observed from 10-11 to 16-17 hours.

How long does phacelia bloom

How long does phacelia bloom? On one phacelia plant there are a large number of flowers (there can be even more than a thousand flowers), which bloom non-simultaneously, so the flowering period of phacelia lasts from 24 to 45 days. The flowering period of phacelia is longer with wide-row sowing, when many side branches are formed. To increase the flowering period of phacelia, sowing is carried out in 2-3 runs or before winter.

Phacelia as pollen - phacelia pollen

phacelia and a bee collects pollen Phacelia tansy as a honey plant is an extremely important plant for stationary apiaries, but phacelia for beekeeping is also important as a pollen plant. Phacelia gives bees up to 180 kg of pollen per hectare. When the field of phacelia blooms, the bees carry a lot of blue pollen to the hive. It makes sense to orient apiaries standing on phacelia not only to collect honey, but also to collect pollen, the pollen is of high quality, sweet, of one color, with a rich vitamin composition.

Phacelia flower pollen grain - phacelia pollen

The pollen grain of the phacelia flower is very characteristic. It is round in polar projection and oval in equatorial projection. The average size of pollen grains is 22 microns in diameter. It has three three-lobed openings reaching almost to the poles. In addition to these furrows, there are three additional furrows (pseudocolps) on the pollen surface, not so deep, which stretch towards the poles. This arrangement creates characteristic bands - radially symmetrical, visible under microscopic magnification.

 

Growing phacelia as a honey plant mixed with other honey plants

Phacelia and bruise in joint crops
Often, the cultivation of phacelia as a honey plant is not produced in pure plantings, but in a mixture with other honey plants, the most popular mixtures are the joint cultivation of phacelia and bruise, phacelia with biennial or annual sweet clover, as well as phacelia with buckwheat.
When sowing phacelia and bruise, it is taken into account that phacelia is an annual plant, and bruise is perennial. Therefore, phacelia acts as a cover crop. The sowing rate of phacelia seeds per 1 hectare is 8 kg, and the bruise is 6 kg of seeds. Seeds are mixed and sown with grass seeders, setting the minimum rotation of the sowing shaft in the same way as when sowing millet. The depth of seed placement is not more than 3-4 cm, followed by rolling.
Sowing of phacelia and bruise is carried out simultaneously with the sowing of early grain crops. At the same time, the phacelia is mowed without waiting for its complete end of flowering. This gives the bruise time to develop well in the first year and to produce nectar well in the next 2-3 years. With such a joint sowing of phacelia and bruise, in the conditions of the Samara region, phacelia blooms in June, and the bruise blooms in May of the next year.

 

Phacelia and sweet clover in joint crops

Sowing of phacelia and sweet clover is carried out similarly to sowing of phacelia with a bruise.

Phacelia and buckwheat in joint crops

Good results are obtained by sowing phacelia together with buckwheat in this case, the yield of buckwheat increases by 1.0-1.8 tons per hectare.
So, in the conditions of the Volgograd region, despite the heat reaching 54 C, sowing of buckwheat produced by the ASTRA 5.4A seeder with seeding to a depth of 5-6 cm with the introduction of ammophos at the rate of 30 kg/ha and manual sowing of Raduga phacelia with seeding to a depth of 1 -2 cm. Seeds were taken in the ratio of 1.5 million buckwheat seeds and 1.0 million phacelia seeds. Sowing such a mixture gave an increase of 11 q/ha of buckwheat seeds.
Phacelia ensured full and timely pollination of buckwheat by bees. Buckwheat was most well pollinated and produced honey in warm weather, but drought sharply reduced the release of nectar and the smell of buckwheat. But flowering crops of phacelia increased the visits of bees to buckwheat. Phacelia flowers had a bright blue color and a scent that attracted bees as well as other insects. It is important to choose varieties so that the flowering of phacelia and buckwheat occurs simultaneously, as well as the growth and development of phacelia are similar to buckwheat.

Phacelia honey

Phacelia honey is in no way inferior to linden honey in its qualities.
Phacelia honey is almost colorless or light greenish, after crystallization it is white, with a delicate taste and light aroma. Phacelia honey has a wonderful memorable taste, which is given to honey by essential oils and phytoncides of phacelia.
Crystallized phacelia honey with an oily consistency, similar to dough. Crystallized phacelia honey has such a consistency that honey is easily spread on a piece of bread. Phacelia honey crystallizes very slowly. Phacelia honey does not crystallize in combs, so it is suitable for winter food for bees.
Phacelia honey collected in the conditions of the Ulyanovsk region had a diastase number of 8 at a rate of at least 6.4, and an inverted sugar content of 81.2 units at a rate of at least 75 units.
An apiary that will focus on getting phacelia honey will have a competitive advantage over other apiaries that get honey from herbs. Phacelia honey belongs to the light types of honey and therefore is in demand for export deliveries. With a good marketing policy, phacelia honey can be sold as branded comb honey at higher prices.