dandelion, rosemary and native crabapple 2022

In my opinion, this spring attracted more bees to dandelion flowers than previous years. Thank you to my neighbors who do not spray herbicides.

Strong spring wind gusts made photographing bee foraging difficult and I consequently have not included bees visiting blooming ornamental cherry trees and eastern redbud.   What's left on my iPhone are a few lucky snaps of bees on native crabapple (thanks to Trees Atlanta) and rosemary flowers.

native crabapple and rosemary 2021

Thank you Trees Atlanta for planting pollinator friendly trees like:

• eastern redbud
• native crabapple

I was not going to include rosemary flowers, but iPhone 11 color saturation is fabulous.  This Mediterranean native shrub does well in Atlanta's zone 7 hardiness when located in a sunny location. 

Currently I can't find bees on dandelions and spiderwort flowers - is there an overabundance of honey bee forage?

2019 spring bloom markers

This Atlanta spring has been like no other year, nor have we ever experienced an average spring.    Yet, I want a rough guide to plan my spring beeyard tasks.   At the moment, hives are in a winter configuration with bee cozy hive wraps and bradford pear and redbud trees blooming.

On February 21st, Atlanta pollen count exceeded 1000 which coincided with a Growing Degree Days (GDD) of 90. I'll use GDD equal to 90 and compare this spring with previous years. I calculated GDD using data from the University of Georgia Automated Weather Network.  I'll also use Julian Day  which converts a MMM-DD-YYYY date format which spans 4 months (January to April) into a seamless day of year format.

In the graph notice:

• similar Day of Year values between this year and 2018
• warm 2017 outlier which reached a GDD equal to 90 on January 19

Native Crabapple Tree Mar '18

Thanks to Trees Atlanta, a small native crabapple tree attracts the honey bee.  This species and eastern redbud were planted along the street over a year ago.  I took a few iPhone photos and the first photo turned out best.

At the MABA meeting, Geoffrey Williams of the Auburn Bee Lab was asking the question which wild flower species attract which species of native pollinators.    I have my own questions, which tree species are better at attracting honey bees, and the ultimate question of what location and tree species attract the honey bee best.    Trees Atlanta plants multiple trees of the same species side-by-side.  Turns out that the native crabapple tree with the best mid-day sun attracts the honey bee.

Native Crabapple thanks to Trees Atlanta

A few months ago, Trees Atlanta planted a large number of small trees in our neighborhood.  I quickly recognized the small Eastern Redbud tress, which consistently attract honey bees to their purple flowers.

Here are a few lucky iPhone photos of what appears to be a small Native Crabapple tree with honey bees visiting their flowers. 

off with the bee cozy & spring markers 2012

Bee foraging on redbud tree

Bee foraging on burford holly bush


We returned from a two week UK trip to discover all of my spring markers present (today is day 71 of this year).   Our winter was exceptionally warm and compared to the past three years, the spring markers have come early. 

                              2009               2010                 2011

                         Day of Year        Day of Year          Day of Year

Bradford Pear               65                 79                   60

Carpenter Bees              68                 87                   72

Acer palmatum leaf out      73                 92                   77

Flowering Dogwood           80                 93                   80

Asian Wisteria              83                 96                   81

Carolina Cherry Laurel      73                 97                   83

I removed the bee cozys and during the inspection discover tons of bees and brood in all of the boxes.  I can't say enough good things about the bee cozy--at $15, the reusable bee cozy is a no-brainer.  Despite redbud tree and burford holly bush forage, the bees are more defensive than I expected, perhaps this is consistent with the absence of  a major nectar flow.  Did I nearly miss all of the Atlanta spring?--all except the tulip poplar flow.