This weekend in N Georgia there were asters of many sizes and colors blooming everywhere. We stay in the mountains at my house across the valley from Black Rock Mountain so we often hike there.
At Black Rock Mountain State Park, there's a lake with a path to walk around it. We saw tons of these white asters, covered with honeybees and other bees as well. The first picture is a honeybee on the aster. The second picture is some other bee, also enjoying the aster.
I'm reading Sue Hubbell's A Book of Bees. She raised her bees in Arkansas, but says in her book that in the fall, the bees feed on asters as much as they feed on goldenrod. Either flower makes a rank-tasting honey, but mostly beekeepers leave this honey on the hive for the bees.
In the city of Atlanta we don't have much fall flow, but out in the country or up in the mountains, goldenrod and asters - blue ones and white ones like these are everywhere in abundance right now.
From reading the Internet today, I believe this is heath aster, or aster ericoides, found prolifically in Georgia. I'm not sure what these flowers are, but if you want to see a lovely collection of aster photos, click here.
Hi Linda - I recently heard the same information at a beekeeping class at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, and the next day I went to Home Depot and bought a bunch of the common purple asters they are selling... Within two days they were covered with honeybees. Not sure if they're a local hive or a wild group, but they were very happy!
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