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I've been keeping this blog for all of my beekeeping years and I am beginning my 19th year of beekeeping in April 2024. Now there are more than 1300 posts on this blog. Please use the search bar below to search the blog for other posts on a subject in which you are interested. You can also click on the "label" at the end of a post and all posts with that label will show up. At the very bottom of this page is a list of all the labels I've used.

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I began this blog to chronicle my beekeeping experiences. I have read lots of beekeeping books, but nothing takes the place of either hands-on experience with an experienced beekeeper or good pictures of the process. I want people to have a clearer picture of what to expect in their beekeeping so I post pictures and write about my beekeeping saga here.Master Beekeeper Enjoy with me as I learn and grow as a beekeeper.

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Sunday, October 14, 2007

Bees and Asters


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.
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1 comment:

  1. 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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