Category Archives: Alder Bush

Alder Bushes and Birch Trees Can Provide Pollen for Honey Bees

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I’ve written about Alder Bushes before as one of the honey bee friendly flowers in Newfoundland, but I’ve never posted any video of honey bees on alder bushes. So here it is:

October 2019 Postscript: These video clips and photos were taken on my cell phone at a time when I was just beginning to emerge from the cave I’d been living in since December 2016. The medical community calls it Post-Concussion Syndrome. It’s about as much fun as it sounds. The best therapy, better than any physical and neurological therapy, was being outside. In silence. With my bees. Whenever there was a calm in my neurological symptoms, I went outside to enjoy it while I could. I’m slowly digging through those cell phone videos and posting them when I can.

Honey Bee Friendly Flower: Alder Bush

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I noticed my bees collecting a light-coloured pollen from a flowering tree today that I’ve never noticed before. Here’s a cellphone shot:

A source of pollen for honey bees in Flatrock, Newfoundland on May 25, 2016.

A source of pollen for honey bees in Flatrock, Newfoundland, on May 25, 2016.

The flowers are not juicy and wet like fruit flowers full of nectar. They’re dry and crumbly and the pollen easily floats away like dust with the slightest disturbance, very much like Sorrel pollen.

The unfurled version of the flower in Flatrock, Newfoundland on May 25, 2016.

The unfurled version of the flower in Flatrock, Newfoundland on May 25, 2016.

Anyone who lives in Newfoundland has probably seen this tree many times growing in the ditches by the side of the road. But I don’t know what it is.
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