well, last week things were starting to happen and today the bees were hanging around the hives and kind of irritable. driving home i noticed that privet is already basically out.
it's been terrible in my part of the state. the guy that owns 400 acres next to me mowed about 10 acres of white clover a couple of weeks ago and it seemed to be blooming pretty good last time i looked. wild blueberry is in bloom but i don't think it does much.
sumac should be in soon and you may have sourwood up your way. if you're near cotton fields you may get a flow from them.
don's right about buckwheat. i planted about an acre yesterday and i planted about an acre and a half of sunflowers a few weeks ago. i'm trying to give mine something to work til goldenrod comes in. i have some large cotton fields a few miles from me but i don't know if they'll find them.
as far as pollen goes, when bahia grass starts up the bees will bring in a lot of pollen off of it. the bees will start bringing in all kinds of pollen this summer.
i was thinking today that i'd probably actually have to feed this year and i don't like too but between me pushing the bees and crappy weather if sumac doesn't really put out i won't be harvesting this year (i hadn't planned to) and i won't be doing another round of splits (i'm more upset about this).
my neighbor got a package last saturday. i hope it does ok, i hived a swarm right down the road a couple of days before that so i feel like the feral bees think there's still time.
sorry about rambling but this has been on my mind today.
anyway, don't let it get you down. it was just a really bad spring but there are still some flows to go.