I can't see any problem with it, though I don't know if bees will work potato flowers or not. I did find a reference to potato blooms in an old honey market report ( http://www.beesource.com/news/nhmn/nhmn6_00.htm ), so it appears it could be a significant source.

Here is a link that might be useful: Old honey market report

Thanks for that link! Sounds like potatoes could be a good source, but it mentions other things such as fireweed which grows all over the place off of the valley floor.

Gosh, tarheit, you have to look way down that report for a mention of taters. You must read that report the way some folks read the Bible. Good eye.

I grew up in a county where over 100 thou. acres of potatoes were grown (Aroostook County, ME), and spent summers rouging the potato fields and pulling mustard, and rarely saw more than a few bees. I guess maybe they worked them if nothing else was available, but in that northern climate all kinds of weeds bloom in the 3-4 months that are frost-free. The buckwheat fields in bloom provided bee pasture, but only a few bees were seen in the taters.

As a member of the nightshade family, potato stalks are poisonous, and green potatoes are too. Potatoes are a stalk crop, not a root crop, and once exposed to light, the potato will photosynthesize.

Well, I cheated a bit using search.

It doesn't give a great indication how good a source, how many acres are needed, or under what conditions it is a good crop, but I couldn't turn up much more on potatoes as a honey source. I know some sources can vary considerably by the weather or year. And I've seen bees completely ignore 'good' crops (even sweet clover) when a better source is available.

My understanding is that bumblebees are the sole pollinators of potatoes.

Which would make sense as both potatos and bumblebees are from the new world.

Potatoes are pollinated by bumble bees anad other types of bees, such as halictid bees (some of those small green or grey metallic types). Honey bees will have little or no interest, unless they are extremely desperate! I don't think that the bees that do pollinate potatoes get much nectar, it's better as a pollen source.