Blackberry Bushes

[Keith13]

Do bees feed on, or collect from blackberry bushes i have a large field covered mostly in blackberries and was wondering if that would be a good place to place a few hives

[rdy-b]

It would be an excellent place to set hives-where are you ?-RDY-B

[Alan Forbes]

There are a lot of blackberry bushes where I live and I see many bees working the flowers.  From what I can tell, they produce copious amounts of nectar that bees turn into a beautiful light-colored honey.  Pollination also promotes fruit set, so you will get plenty of blackberries come summer.

[Sir Stungalot]

Blackberries are a choice plant for bees...count yourself lucky! Here in E. Texas, they, at least right here where I live, are a major source of the spring flow. Actually, they are Dew berries, nearly the same plant as Blackberries only wild. I have rows of cultivated BB's and they bees go ape for them.

[Cindi]

In our lower southwestern coastal region of British Columbia, the blackberry is a flow within itself.  Around the beginning of June and lasts about a month.  The blackberries grow so abundantly and wild around this part of the country that entire hillsides can be consumed by them, and they grow fast.  Kind of reminds me of that thread where there was so much talk about the Kudzu.

We have acres and acres and acres of mountain sides, hillsides, sides of anything you could imagine, blackberries grow EVERYWHERE!!!!!  And yes, the bees love and adore the flowers of these prickly, spiney (how many other adjectives can I use to describe the pain the thorns inflict?).  As much as human love the berries for blackberry pies, jellies, crips, and the list goes on.  Yep, bees and blackberries, they are the best of comrades.  Have an awesome day.  Cindi

[beeginner]

YAY Im in luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!              There so bad in this countey ever one trys to kill them and bush hog them down!!!   My friends land right be hind my house is just about taken over!!  He trys and bushhog them!! But right down the road there some land that 1mile by mile big and its nothing but blackberry bushes!!.   My dad and I work for a ladys and husband that has lots of land about 2 miles from are house!! He wants all the bushes gone weeds. So ever year I have to bush hog them and spry them with some stuff that only a few people can get, ITS 100$ a gallon and he buys 100 of them and I'll go thrue them fast!!! :( But lot of his land is duch clover!!  They was nice to give me a old milkbarn with stainless steel pipe runing watter bathroom So thats going to be my honey house! Now I'll talk to them about makeing the barn and the drive way mine in the papers that way I can put hives there!! for all the good stuff!!

Last year we had a late frost that got all the flowers :( Even the black berrys.

I had a friend that passd away mid of last year that lived right by the milk barn! well I bought bunch of his supers and stuff out of the milk barn. Now that he passd away his wife wants to give me all his beekeeping stuff even 3 hive. But there grand son hits on them and stuff so she is woried!!    But one thing I've see out there berrys are big as a thumb.  All by us there so small to even pick!! I've only had my hive just about a year and last year we had a late frost that got all the flowers!! so it was bad timeing. I think why the other ones are big is from my friends bees.  Maybe this year the berrys by are house will get better sense i've got the bees now and just not starting up from a split and makeing wax!

[Keith13]

Thanks all the information was very helpful. i'm down here in louisiana and the field i have is covered in blackberries up and down the fence line with clover and other wild flowers in the field mixed of course with blackberries

[xC0000005]

Do bees feed on, or collect from blackberry bushes i have a large field covered mostly in blackberries and was wondering if that would be a good place to place a few hives

Boy do they ever.  Consider yourself lucky and get some hives in quick. :)

[Sean Kelly]

Like Cindi said, here in the Pacific Northwest, blackberries ARE the major nector flow.  Besides the pumpkin farm up the road and the stuff in my garden, what they brought in was mostly blackberry.  It's good stuff, light and very flavorfull!

Sean Kelly

[dpence]

Yes, you are lucky.  The blackberries will also produce better.   My neighbors were tickled to have a beekeeper next door, since they grow fruits and berries. 

David

[Keith13]

I was worried I only would produce in the spring but we also have a bayou bank that is covered in pepper vine. That should provide my bees with nectar thru the summer. The fields were grazed heavily by livestock thru the years so the fields have been depleted of the wildflowers luckily the lease is up and now it is reverting back to wild or growing freely. I’m in a position now I can plant what I want so I have a few hundred acres with a blank slate to do with as I please