That is awesome. I bottled a batch of mead just the other day, so the thought of a 'steady' supply of honey sounds rather intriguing...
Maybe in a few years when I buy my own place, I will look into keeping some bees too :-)

Beekeeping was something I wanted to try for years. I'm having a lot of fun with it. And frustration when my hives collapse. I saw a news article that said that the Dept. of Agriculture was going to start encouraging urban homeowners to keep bees because their numbers are declining so rapidly.

Linda

Linda this is a great news!

Are you in the city, or in suburbs? Just wondering what rules apply to bee keeping in large cities, for sure I have enough space for a hive or two... See tons of flying creatures next to mangoes when in bloom, mango honey sounds interesting!

Linda, Glad you are back in bees-ness!!
Thanks for the update on foliar feeding,on another thread.
Karin, thanks for the link to the website on separating crowns. I am being lazy and replying to other threads on this one ⦠in the interest of taking a short-cut

Irina,Linda, Update on my violet that sprouted suckers on a neck from which the crown had snapped off. One sucker, a large one, was planted in its own condiment size container.
To Splattered Whim, on pot size, I found a tray for seedlings at my hardware store that is perfect for leaves. 24 compartments that are 1.5", have holes, a tray and a dome. In no time at all, I was able to fill it with mix and leaves, dome it, and I'm done!
To Michael, great photo, thanks for sharing!
Joanne

Aggie,

I live outside of Cincinnati in a semi-rural area. All of the houses around have at least one acre, some several, so we are fairly well spread out. The bee inspector comes once a year to give advice and help and he told me there are many 'side-yard' hives.

Mango honey does sound good! I get Honey Locust honey in the spring. I am not taking any honey from the hive this year as I have about 100,000 bees in it. I think we are in for a rough winter and I think they will need the honey all for themselves.

It's really an interesting hobby and low upkeep. You should try it if you have the space!

Linda

Linda,

Will do some reading during holidays!
Have zero experience in bee keeping, but with biology background should be able to figure it out! Although we are in the city, yards are big; about half an acre up to 2 acres. I should try it sooner than later; we just got first mcmansion in the neighborhood. Soon we may have more houses than yards, and mango and poinciana trees will be gone. :(
For now free time (if ever existed) goes to very complicated DIY bathroom redo, and reading time to violets (when I can't move any more, and thought of sharing a bathroom with a teenager until she leaves home isn't so horrifying)!

Aggie

This post was edited by Aggie2 on Tue, Dec 3, 13 at 10:00

Again... what's the African Violet related relevance of this thread?

Are bees a natural pollinators of AV's?

Nope - probably THRIPS.

How about starting a thripsyhive at home - and do not even mention pesticide...

I've long been curious how AVs are pollinated in nature. A quick Google search using the phrases "bee pollination of African Violets" and "insect pollination of African Violets" revealed some references. There is evidence for pollination by thrips and bees. Here are a couple of references and excerpts from their observations. (This is a bit long, however, I thought the second one has an interesting technique someone might want to try). www.geocities.ws/pghviolets/Propagation.pdf
"... in the wild, a small insect called a trips is responsible for violet pollination."
forum.african-violet.eu/viewtopic.php
"... fungus gnats and other insects might pollinate a flower, like this you suddenly get a seedpod as a surprise. Some violets also seem to self-pollinate, S. shumensis quite regularly forms seedpods without my help. But I found another trick which seems to work for self-pollinating.

In nature African violets are pollinated by certain species of wild bees. These bees have a special technique to collect pollen, called "buzzing" ... You can see bumblebees do the same in rose-flowers in the garden. The bee uses its flight muscles to make its whole body vibrate, when it sits on a flower. Also the flower vibrates and this causes the pollen to get loose. Pollen lands on the bee and the bee collects it from it's fur. Some pollen ends on the stigma (= tip of the female part of the flower), which is self-pollinating and when the bee visits the next flower, some pollen ends on the stigma of that flower as well (cross pollinating if the flower is on another plant).

We don't have the correct bees in Europe for pollinating violets ... But we do have something that buzzes: a shaving machine I found that if you hold a shaving machine against the flower stem and briefly turn it on, the buzzing shakes enough pollen loose that most of the time a seedpod is formed. In modern cultivars it might make sense to remove the corolla (flower-leaves) as soon as it stops looking nice, in species and in older cultivars this usually falls of by itself ("droppers"). The corolla can otherwise stick to the forming seedpod and you get a deformed seedpod as a result (but seeds develop normally in a deformed seedpod, so you can also leave it be and just see what happens). It takes a long time before a seedpod is mature, count on half a year at least. Only remove it from the mother plant when it starts to turn brown, otherwise the seeds might not mature enough."

So it is quite easy to get seedpods to try sowing violets and see how it goes. The real difficulty is to know enough of genetics to try planned hybridising and to prevent accidental pollinating while you try something more planned."

Joanne

Joanne,

Interesting info. I suspect thrips might be a big pollinator. They are so numerous and easily transferred from one plant to another.

Taxonomist,

Having a bad day, are we?

Linda