What trees secretion honeydew in coniferous and deciduous forests?

Collecting honeydew honey is one of the options for obtaining valuable marketable honeydew honey, especially during periods when the collection of nectar honey is limited. But in order to collect this honey, the beekeeper must know which trees secrete honeydew. Read to the end - it will be interesting!

 

Content

• Where and when trees allocate honeydew
• What trees allocate honeydew in a coniferous forest
• Spruce honeydew
• Fir honeydew
• Pine honeydew
• Juniper honeydew
• Honeydew from other conifers
• What trees emit honeydew in a deciduous forest
• Oak honeydew
• Beech honeydew
• Maple honeydew
• Linden honeydew
• Willow honeydew
• Poplar honeydew
• Aspen honeydew
• white acacia honeydew
• Honeydew from other hardwoods

 

Where and when trees allocate honeydew

For commercial production, the beekeeper must know which trees emit honeydew, and bring the apiary to the place where the honeydew is collected. As a rule, the release of honeydew in large quantities occurs in forests. Isolation of honeydew with grasses, shrubs or small forest plantations can only spoil the winter forage or create problems during a drought period, but will not give a marketable harvest of honeydew. Therefore, it is important to know where large tracts of forest are located and which trees allocate honeydew.

What trees secretion honeydew in coniferous and deciduous forests?

What trees secretion honeydew in a coniferous forest

Coniferous forests are the main lands where bees collect honeydew in commercial quantities, since there are many coniferous forests and honeydew is of high quality. It is in coniferous forests that excellent honeydew varieties are collected in Turkey, Greece, Poland, Germany, Austria and other countries.

What are the bees doing on the tree? Strange as it may seem, but the bees on the Christmas tree, like on other coniferous trees, collect honey, or rather honeydew, which they process into honey in the hive. How does a bee take honey from needles? In order to collect honey from the needles, the bee visits the coniferous trees and collects from the needles the sweet secretions of honeydew secretions.

As a rule, young beekeepers ask a simple question, what kind of coniferous honeydew is on the Christmas tree? However, each coniferous tree has its own honeydew insects. What trees secretions honeydew in coniferous forests?

Spruce honeydew

Do bees take nectar from spruce? Spruce is the main host plant, ranking first in quality and quantity of honeydew produced. Thus, bees do not take nectar from spruce, but honeydew. Spruce honeydew is mainly distinguished by 5 species of insects (Large black spruce aphid (Cinara piceae); powdered aphid (Cinara pilicornis); green striped spruce aphid; large and small spruce whorl false scale insects (Physokermes piceae, Ph. hemicryphus)).

At the end of April - in the first decade of May, a spruce honeydew appears, secreted by large aphids, the number of which reaches its maximum level in the third decade of May and remains at this level until the beginning of the third decade of June. The small false shield begins to produce spruce honeydew 25 days earlier than the large one, and the maximum amount of honeydew is between June 25 and July 25. The large spruce aphid provides two honeydew nectars. The first honeydew bribe reaches its maximum between June 15 and July 5, and the second between August 25 and September 15. From the end of June to the end of July, honeydew bribes on spruce are also provided by powdered aphids, and in June by green striped spruce aphids.
The large black spruce aphid and the spruce mealy aphid (Cinara costata) are renowned as raw materials for hard-to-pump spruce honey, which beekeepers have nicknamed "cement honey".

Spruce honeydew is characteristic of old large forests growing on heavy, acidic, clay soils. In good weather, the control hive scales can show weight gains of 3 kg per day. Spruce honeydew is more predictable, appearing every year on the same trees, albeit in different numbers.

Spruce honey is dark green in color, very sticky, with a resinous aroma. Crystallizes slowly, forms large crystals, becomes darker.

This, by the way, should be noted by beekeepers, whose apiaries are next to coniferous forests - if the honey is dark where there is a spruce forest nearby, then the bees wore honeydew.

 

Fir honeydew

Fir provides a continuous flow of fir honeydew from the green fir aphid (Cinara pictinae), which lasts with short breaks from June-July to September. The fir honeydew produced by this insect is candied on the branches as it is very concentrated. The bees collect it very well. The large fir aphid (Cinara confines) produces at first a colorless honeydew, then brown, in the form of resin-like droplets on branches and leaves. The strongest bribes are observed in August and September. On fir, a small false shield (common and fir) produces a honeydew, the maximum bribe with which occurs in June - July.
Fir honey is golden yellow, with a malty taste and aroma.
The fir honeydew is quite capricious. In large quantities, it appears about once every four years, and then daily gains can be seven to eight kilograms. In small numbers they are found more often, even for several years in a row, but not always in the same forest areas. honeydew can be found both on old and young trees (on the latter more often). Fir honeydew can appear from the end of May until October. The highest fees are observed in June-July. Sometimes honeydew release is delayed, and its peak falls on August-September. The duration of the honey collection is also unknown: from one to two weeks to two to three months. The fact is that the development of honeydew producers is very dependent on weather conditions during this period and in the whole year. From fir honeydew, under favorable weather conditions, a good family can get 30-50 kilograms of honey.

Pine honeydew

Do bees take honey from pine trees? Pine provides honeydew honeydew from the large pine aphid (Cinara pinea) that lasts from spring until frost falls. How do bees collect pine honey? The maximum collection level is observed in July-August. In view of the area that it occupies, the pine ranks third in importance among the plants of the coniferous forest that highlight the honeydew.
Pine honey (from mountain pine) has the appearance of bird glue both in color (almost watery-transparent) and in consistency.

Juniper honeydew

What do bees collect from juniper? Juniper as a host plant is of limited interest, as it occupies a small area. Provides, however, a good harvest of honeydew, produced by a large juniper aphid, the first time in June, and the second - starting from the last days of August.

Fall from other conifers

 

What do bees collect from larch at the end of summer? Bees collect honeydew from larch, as well as thuja, cedar and other coniferous trees. Thus, to the question whether bees collect honey from coniferous trees, it can be answered that bees do not collect honey from coniferous trees, but honeydew, which they process into honey.

 

What trees secretion honeydew in a deciduous forest

In the deciduous forest, honeydew is also harvested by bees, producing high quality varieties of honey, such as Manov honey in Bulgaria.

Aphids on plants for bees and honey are found on many hardwoods. What trees distinguish honeydew in a deciduous forest?

Oak honeydew

Oak (Burgundy, rocky, cedar, mountain) serves as a host for 5 main species of insects - producers of oak honeydew and, apparently, occupies the first place in deciduous forests in terms of value. Oak honeydew - the first drops of honeydew, isolated by brown oak bark aphids, appear in April, secretion reaches a noticeable level at the end of May, when bees begin to collect it intensively. More abundant honeydew is released in the second half of June. In July, honeydew production stops and starts again in the first ten days of August. After a month, the release of honeydew brown aphids decreases.

When is the fall on the trees collected by bees? In June, honeydew and black shiny aphids begin to appear. Under favorable conditions of temperature and air humidity, two small insects from the Callaphididae family begin to release honeydew in mid-July, which produce so much honeydew that all oak leaves are covered with a film of syrup. The oak false scale gives the maximum amount of honeydew in the second half of May and the first half of June.

Beech honeydew

The beech, whose importance is due to the fact that it occupies a large area, serves as the host for two producers of honeydew, providing the first bribe in May - June and the second - in August - September.

Maple honeydew

Maple (Tatar, field, mountain, plane-shaped) is of exceptional importance, as it serves as a source of nectar, pollen and honeydew. The excretion of honeydew by spawners living on maple trees reaches its maximum level at the end of May and remains at this level throughout June.

Linden honeydew

Linden (large-leaved, heart-shaped, felt, white) supplies honeydew, starting from the flowering period. In some cases, due to the abundance of honeydew, the bees visit the leaves and not the flowers. Sometimes, after a nectar flow, linden ensures high productivity of bees due to honeydew produced by Eucalipterus aphids. A large linden tree can produce up to 24 kg of honeydew. The control hive can show the maximum profit per day up to 11 kg, and the average collection of honey per bee colony can be 70 kg.

Willow honeydew

Willow (common, goat, ashen, brittle, purple) primarily produces nectar and pollen in abundance and occupies large areas. If the willow nectar flow is one of the first in early spring, then the honeydew flow from willow in August-September ends the active bee season. The large bark willow aphid produces so much honeydew that drops of it fall as if it were raining, to the point of forming puddles under the tree.

Poplar honeydew

Poplar (silver, black, etc.) in some years in some areas provides a good honeydew harvest, usually between May 20 and June 10.

Aspen honeydew

Aspen abundantly secretion honeydew - honeydew from aspen forms puddles under the trees. All the leaves on the trees are covered with a sweet liquid, drips of honeydew cover the grass growing under the trees, the control hive can show the maximum profit of collecting honeydew honey from aspen - 6 kg per day, and a daily yield of 2.5-3.0 kg can be within month.

white acacia honeydew

White locust is of exceptional importance for beekeeping, as it produces a lot of nectar and occupies large areas, provides the main honey collection, which cannot be compared with any other. In addition, in some years, the acacia is generous in the fall. Black aphid and acacia false scale - the main producers of honeydew on acacia - emit a significant amount of honeydew in the period from 10 to 30 June.

honeydew from other hardwoods

In the zone of deciduous forests, chestnut, birch, elm and hazel also serve as host plants for honeydew producers. However, these species supply a small amount of honeydew.