tulip poplar windfall and phenology '26

Spring seems to be arriving a bit early this year—at least in my Atlanta backyard. My records show the first tulip poplar flower windfall appeared on day 84, about 13 days earlier than expected. It’s a small but telling sign that the season is shifting ahead of schedule.

To put this in perspective, I compared my observations with broader indicators like the National Phenology Network’s Spring Bloom Index. This model, based on flowering plants like lilacs and honeysuckles and seasonal temperature patterns, shows that the 2026 spring in Georgia’s Piedmont region is running a few days early compared to the 30-year average.

In other words, what I’m seeing locally matches the bigger picture—spring is getting a head start.

Other Atlanta nectar sources at this time (not shown):

• Chinese Wysteria (invasive)
  
• White Clover
• Spiderwort
• Amur Honeysuckle (invasive)
• Dandelion 

 

1st Tulip Poplar Windfall	Day of Year
10-Apr-2011	100
27-Mar-2012	87
19-Apr-2013	109
12-Apr-2015	102
15-Apr-2017	105
5-Apr-2018	95
11-Apr-2019	101
7-Apr-2021	97
6-Apr-2022	96
24-Mar-2023	83
6-Apr-2024	97
3-Apr-2025	93
25-Mar-2026	84
median	97

tulip poplar windfall, other spring flowers and phenology '25

 

Based on my Atlanta backyard observations and record keeping, I found this year's first Tulip Popular flower windfall a few days early (day 93) - see my table below.  I compared my first tulip poplar windfall observations with other spring surrogates.  The National Phenology Network leaf out model is another way to determine if spring is early, on time, or late.

Spring Leaf Index Anomaly Map uses the first leaf out of cloned lilac and honeysuckle cultivars as these woody plants are among the first to leaf out or bloom and are common across much of the country.  The model also uses temperature and weather events beginning January 1 of each year.  The current spring is compared with a 1991-2020 average. The map shows that the 2025 Georgia Piedmont region's first leaf out day of the year is a few days early compared to the 30-year average.

Other Atlanta nectar sources at this time (not shown):

• Chinese Wysteria (invasive)
  
• White Clover
• Spiderwort
• Amur Honeysuckle (invasive)
• Dandelion

1st Tulip Poplar Windfall	Day of Year
10-Apr-2011	100
27-Mar-2012	87
19-Apr-2013	109
12-Apr-2015	102
15-Apr-2017	105
5-Apr-2018	95
11-Apr-2019	101
7-Apr-2021	97
6-Apr-2022	96
24-Mar-2023	83
6-Apr-2024	97
3-Apr-2025	93
median	97

tulip poplar windfall, other spring flowers and phenology '24

Click on the image and notice that ants have discovered the tulip poplar flower. These ants are not thought of as pollinators just clever at finding sweets.

Based on my Atlanta backyard observations and record keeping, I found this year's first Tulip Popular flower windfall right on time (day 97) - see my table below.  I'm curious how my first tulip poplar windfall observations correlate with other spring surrogates?  The National Phenology Network leaf out model is another way to determine if spring is early, on time, or late.

Spring Leaf Index Anomaly Map uses the first leaf out of cloned lilac and honeysuckle cultivars as these woody plants are among the first to leaf out or bloom and are common across much of the country.  The model also uses temperature and weather events beginning January 1 of each year.  The current spring is compared with a 1991-2020 average. The map shows that the 2024 Georgia Piedmont region's first leaf out day of the year is similar to the 30-year average - spring is on time in the Georgia Piedmont region and surrounding regions show that spring is a few days early.

Other Atlanta nectar sources at this time (not shown):

• Chinese Wysteria (invasive)
  
• White Clover
• Spiderwort
• Amur Honeysuckle (invasive)
• Dandelion
  

1st Windfall	day of year
April 10, 2011	100
March 27, 2012	87
April 19, 2013	109
April 12, 2015	102
April 15, 2017	105
April 5, 2018	95
April 11, 2019	101
April 7, 2021	97
April 6, 2022	96
March 24, 2023	83
April 6, 2024	97
median	97

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moving swarm to 8-frame equipment

Today I moved the swarm to 8-frame equipment. In one week, all 5 frames had similar new comb construction on the plastic starter strips. 

I moved the swarm lure to the 8-frame landing board, and the remaining bees entered the 8-frame equipment in under 2 hours - I did not bump bees off the swarm trap. In the last photo, notice the homemade rectangular UV-reactive blue 8-frame entrance.

The bees returned with cream-colored Tulip Poplar pollen and slowly consumed 1:1 syrup.

tulip poplar windfall and other spring flowers '23

NOAA headlines

• February 2023 was Earth’s 4th warmest on record
• Europe saw its second-warmest winter as global sea ice set a new record low

I found this year's first Tulip Popular flower windfall 16 days earlier than expected.  This early arrival was most likely driven by weather/climate.  My observation biases that might undermine the hypothesis:

• I'm better at spotting windfall flowers
• more time spent outdoors and less time commuting to work
  

Other nectar sources at this time (not shown):

• Chinese Wysteria (invasive)
  
• White Clover
• Spiderwort
• Amur Honeysuckle (invasive)
• Dandelion

1st Windfall	day of year
April 10, 2011	100
March 27, 2012	87
April 19, 2013	109
April 12, 2015	102
April 15, 2017	105
April 5, 2018	95
April 11, 2019	101
April 7, 2021	97
April 6, 2022	96
March 24, 2023	83
median	99

tulip poplar windfall and other spring flowers '22

 

1st Windfall	day of year
April 10, 2011	100
March 27, 2012	87
April 19, 2013	109
April 12, 2015	102
April 15, 2017	105
April 5, 2018	95
April 11, 2019	101
April 7, 2021	97
April 6, 2022	96
median	100

I found this year's first Tulip Popular flower windfall on April 6, 2022 (96th day of the year) and in a few days afterward the ground was covered with Tulip Popular flowers and bees returned with cream colored pollen.   April 6 is just a few days earlier than expected.  However March 27, 2012 is the big outlier, nearly 2 weeks earlier than expected.

Other nectar sources at this time (not shown):

• Chinese Wysteria (invasive)
  
• White Clover
• Spiderwort
• Amur Honeysuckle (invasive)
  

tulip poplar windfall and other spring flowers '21

 

I discovered my first 2021 tulip popular flower windfall.  Click to zoom and see ants attracted to tulip flower sweetness.

Stuck working from home, I have become impatient with all things, including waiting for the Atlanta swarm season to start.  On March 7th I hung 8-frame deep swarm traps from crepe myrtle trees and baited unoccupied hives too - welcome to all scout bees. My overwintered bees are heavy but not drawing new comb or scouting the swam traps as I hoped.  The Atlanta swarm season will start when it starts.

flowering plants - native or exotic pest

My favorite native flowering plant, spiderwort, attracts a honey bee. Last week, I noticed the unpleasant smell - now I've discovered the privet flowers. Also shown is a bee on a invasive flowering privet .

Another important bee forage are native tulip poplar flowers (not shown) - at this time of year, tulip poplar flower windfalls commonly attract sweet food seeking ants.

2019 tulip popular

I discovered my first 2019 windfall of the tulip popular flower kind.  Also shown is an invasive shrub which attracts pollinators, amur honeysuckle.  Other nectar sources at this time (not shown) include white clover and spiderwort.

Last weekend, I entered the hives for the first time this year.   The honey cap of one hive was checkerboard using foundation-less frames with no drawn comb.  The other hive was left in its winter configuration.

Weeks ago, I set tree hanging 8-frame swarm traps, but yet to see any scout bees.

tulip popular flower windfall

Today I discovered the first 2018 windfall of the tulip popular flower kind.  Tulip poplar flowers could be a valuable nectar flow for the bees if the weather cooperates - no hard rainfall please.

In late February for one hive and mid-March for the other hive, I checkerboard the honey cap using foundation-less frames with no drawn comb. Both overwintered hives are flying with nearly equal vigor and have an amazing low number of small hive beetles during hive inspections, but are not drawing comb as I expected.

On March 29th I hung 8-frame deep swarm traps from crepe myrtle trees and now wait for the first scout bees - apparently I'm waiting impatiently.

2017 nectar flow

Bee cooperative weather is supporting a strong nectar flow of holly bushes, white clover, spiderwort and tulip poplar. Native mining bees and carpenter bees are extremely active too.

This year, I started to checkerboard the honey cap of over-wintered hives on March 6th. Since then, I check the honey cap every three weeks. My version of checkerboarding uses foundation-less frames with no drawn comb. Yesterday, I added another medium box to each hive. I don't know how long this nectar flow will last, but I have monstrously tall hives.

My swarm capture is drawing comb and growing in size too, but at a much slower pace than over-wintered hives.  

spring 2015

Reached yet another bloom marker, Tulip Poplar flowers - and with some weather luck, more nectar forage for the bees.  Already, other nectar flows required that I add more medium boxes to two over-wintered hives which are busting with bees.

Earlier this year, I replaced two hanging 5-frame swarm traps with 8-frame swarm traps and removed the bee cozy.  Scouting of the new traps began in early March - stay tuned for move-in news.

three purple petals and six yellow anthers

On the morning walk I discovered honey bees visiting this plant - check out the crisp iPhone photo.   We purchased this flowering perennial too, but I lost track of its name.     I eventually found the plant on an Internet search -  spiderwort.  My garden books were not helpful - perhaps Walter Reeves will consider a Georgia book for beekeepers?

The neighborhood stinks of flowering Privet which started to bloom a few days ago.   A few front yards (without  herbicides) contain tons of white clover.   Has my big honey crop year hit a bump? - is the bee population in or out of sync with the weather and flowering plants? - four inches of rain in three days was ridiculous! - these are the uncertainties of the honey harvest.

2013 tulip poplar flower

On April 15th, I inspected all three hives. The hive with the most flight activity recently drew 8 foundation strips and filled the frames solid with honey.  I am out of medium boxes, so I quickly supered with a deep box containing foundation strips.  I am surprised to see a good nectar flow (and storage) before the arrival of tulip poplar flowers.  Weeks ago, I planned to use my deep boxes to split this hive, but they chose to build vertically and not place queen cells where I can find them.  This could be my big honey year or this could be my imagination.

The other two hives are drawing their foundation strips and filling the frames with honey at a much slower pace. All hives have an amazing low number of small hive beetles (SHB) above the inner cover - killed 3 SHB per hive.   Knock on wood the SHB population remains within bee manageable limits.

I quickly ordered more medium sized boxes boxes from Brushy Mountain and they arrived in four days. The frames have a new milled shaped, most noticeably with a redesign of the frame sides (aka end bars).  The frames are easier to assemble than the old design.  My only concern is with nooks where sides meet the top bar and how they may become hiding places for SHB - I have an very active imagination when it comes to SHB.

At the MABA meeting, Jerry Wallace suggested gluing the frames on day1 and nailing them on day2 - works great and preformed better at keeping the frame pieces at right angles. Thanks Jerry, you are the bee man.

On April 19, I found pieces of tulip poplar flowers and unopened flowers that the wind and squirrels have tossed to the ground.  Nothing worth photographing until I found one medium sized tulip poplar flower head for this blog post.

tulip poplar flower 2012

 

I discovered fully opened tulip poplar flowers in the backyard.    Previously I only found tulip poplar flower heads which were not fully opened.  The squirrels are very helpful in nibbling flower heads and then dropping them to the ground for my inspection.    This may be the big nectar flow that the bees have been waiting for.

Earlier, I may have made a blog error reporting that all my spring markers appeared before day 71.  Actually I now think that the invasive Asian Wisteria bloomed after day 71.

tulip poplar flowering

On the 8th of April, I saw the first sign of a partially open tulip poplar flower on the ground.  Lately, the daytime temperatures have reached 85 °F and I am finding fully opened tulip poplar flowers on the the ground.  If the weather cooperates (unlike last year), then perhaps the tulip poplar flowers will provide a great nectar source for the bees.

2009 Atlanta rainfall and a look ahead

Let's start at the beginning.  Have you ever wondered whether you can find an average year of rainfall in the historical records?  Does such a thing exist in the wild?  With the assistance of the state climatologist, I was able to accumulate Atlanta rainfall information going back to 1930.  Weighting each month equally, 1997 (blue curve shown above) is the best match to the average rainfall year (purple curve shown above).   Put another way, I did not worry whether the area beneath the curve matched (annual accumulation), but compared each month separately using a least squares method.  What about the curve differences?  Atlanta rainfall is not "dependable" and no two years look exactly the same.  More about this latter.

Shown above in the red curve is the 2009 rainfall (so far).  The big 2009 hump in September-October brought flooding, loss of property, lives and bee lives too.  I speculate that the next largest hump (March) adversely affected nectar gathering during our best in-town nectar flow (tulip poplar flowers).  Why so much rain in 2009?  Has the train left the tracks or has the train always been off its tracks?  Probably a little bit of both--Atlanta rainfall is complicated in part to tropical weather influences and let's not forget the butterfly effect.

Back to data mining--I looked at 80 years of record keeping and found that 1977 (shown in blue) is the best rainfall match to our current year (2009 shown in red).  With me so far?   From a honey harvest point of view, I am only attempting a short range rainfall forecast.  Using a simplistic forecast scheme, what can I expect during February through April 2010?  Shown in the green curve are rainfall values for 1978 (the year following the 1977 best match).  In other words, my February through April fall prediction for 2010 is one of lower than average rainfall.  What if I had used the 2nd best rainfall match to 2009?  So as not to clutter the graph, the 2nd best match is not shown.  If you are still interested, the February through April 2010 forecast is similar using the best and 2nd best match to 2009 rainfall.

Shown above is the "official" February through April 2010 rainfall forecast.  It's hard to see, but Atlanta lies between that brown Indiana/Ohio bulls eye and green Florida shading--in a region of no shading (white map color).  In other words, the "official" forecast for Atlanta is one of "equal chance" of 1) above normal, 2) normal or 3) below normal rainfall.  Is this some kind of super computer joke?   What, unable to forecast? 

I don't have much skin in the bee game, but I'll stick my neck out and say that in 2010, Atlanta will not have too much rain during the tulip poplar nectar flowering.  Next spring, I'll review my rainfall forecast using hind sight.