u/talanall

This is commonly known as camphorweed, and it's massively common in North America and Central America, with a range extending from somewhere in Canada in the north, down to Belize in the south, and from Massachusetts all the way west to California.

It's hardy, fast-growing, and it tolerates poor soil and salinity. Very much the kind of thing that you will find growing in places where little else will grow.

I've seen it for years, but I've never seen honey bees show interest in it until yesterday, when I went for a stroll and saw them working on it in great numbers.

Genus Heterotheca contains something like sixty species, some of them much less widespread than this one, which is the type species for the genus. As far as I know, all of them are native to North America or Central America. I'm not sure if any have been exported as invasive or exotic plants.

I'm also not really sure whether this is a honey source or a pollen source, or both.

Common name is borage; this is native to the Mediterranean basin, although it's pretty widely cultivated elsewhere. And it's adaptable; this was in the Alaska Botanical Garden at Anchorage.

Despite this, the specimens pictured here were the first that I've ever seen in person, because it's uncommon in my part of the USA. I was pretty excited, because borage often appears in literary works. So this was something I've been reading about for many years.

This can have blue, pink, or white flowers. I think at least some domesticated cultivars have been selected for floral color, but most of the time this stuff has blue flowers.

Most of the time, borage is cultivated as a kitchen herb or for use in traditional medicine (and one of the tell-tales of this is its name; the officinalis part of Borago officinalis means it's the kind of borage you'd find in the storeroom of a medieval monastery, indicating culinary, medical, or manufacturing usefulness).

I'm not sure how these things square with its potential toxicity; it contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids, which can cause liver damage.

Supposedly, these alkaloids can be transmitted into honey derived from borage, but I have never actually heard of anyone being poisoned by this stuff, or by borage honey. I'm not sure how prominent the danger really is, but I guess probably not very. People have been eating borage for thousands of years. Apparently the greens taste similar to cucumbers, and the flowers taste sweet.

In any event, honey bees absolutely love borage, as I think is evident from their prevalence in the attached images.

The common names of this plant, in English, include canary creeper, canary vine, canarybird flower, and canary nasturtium. I've run into suggestions that its common name was applied because it might have been imported to the Canary Islands before it was imported to Western Europe, but I think it's really more plausible that the bright yellow color and wing-like upper petals of its flower reminded people of a canary.

Most (maybe all) Tropaeolum species, are native to South America and Central America; this one is from Peru. It's cultivated as an ornamental in many cool temperate climates, and as you can see from the photo, it flourishes in Anchorage, Alaska, which is in a subarctic zone.

I found it in the Alaska Botanical Garden, where this specimen was part of a collection of kitchen herbs; the leaves and flowers are edible. This is a common trait to most of its genus. The Tropaeolum often show up on lists of edible flowers, described as peppery-tasting. They often are compared to watercress (Nasturtium officinale), which is why the whole genus often has common names that include the word "nasturtium."

I didn't see as many honey bees on this as I did on some of the other plants in this section of the Garden, but they weren't exactly ignoring it, either. I doubt that it's common enough to be a significant source of bee forage outside of its homeland in Peru. If we have any Peruvian beekeepers among us, I'd be eager to know whether it's significant to their bees.

Common names are angelica, garden angelica, and sometimes wild celery. This is native to Europe, but widely cultivated as a garden herb. I saw this specimen in an exhibit of culinary herbs in the Alaska Botanical Garden in Anchorage, but you might find it in almost any temperate kitchen garden.

I'm not sure if angelica grows well in my climate; Louisiana gets awfully hot in the summer, and angelica is a biennial. But maybe that's just as well, because it looks very similar to the water hemlock (genus Cicuta, all parts of all species of which are highly toxic).

Angelica is edible in all of its parts, but if you eat it, you need to be absolutely sure that's what it is.

I've never tasted it by itself, because the specimens I've seen in this garden and at the farmer's market in Anchorage are the only ones I've ever seen in person. But it's an important ingredient in many recipes for gin, Benedictine, Chartreuse, some aquavit, and probably a few other liquers that I don't know about.

I think this specimen was getting toward the end of its blossom, because I saw relatively little honey bee attention being paid to it.

As might be evident to those who follow my bee forage diary postings, I went on an excursion to Alaska recently. This posting is not about that, though. It's about something I did to get ready for my trip, because I'm in the middle of an effort to draw comb during a dearth by trickle-feeding my colonies with very thin syrup.

To do that, you need a feeder that doesn't let your bees chug the entire contents of the feeder. You have to make them consume the syrup slowly, so that it tricks their physiology into thinking there's a nectar flow coming in. And ideally, you need to use a feeder that holds a lot of syrup, because you don't want the "nectar flow" to stop and start as the feeder gets drained and sits empty.

This is not hard to arrange; you can use a 2 gallon or 1 gallon food service bucket with a gasketed lid, with a couple of holes drilled in the lid, or with a 49 mm hole cut in the lid for a tint plug. The problem was that my local hardware stores are out of the appropriate buckets, and have been for a few months. I ordered some directly from a factory, but the delivery ran into a delay because the shipping company lost my package.

So the day before I was due to leave for Alaska, I had a problem. I needed feeders, and I needed the biggest I could get in a local shop.

This is what I settled on. Lowe's sells these as "2.5-quart BPA-Free Plastic Clear Measure mixing bucket." For our metric-using friends who don't live in the States, that's roughly 2.36 liters. I think you probably can find something like this in almost any hardware store.

Lowe's sells this for $3.48. The lid is sold separately, for $2.48. After applying sales taxes, call it $6.60.

Pass a 1.5 mm (1/16") drill bit through the lid as many times as you feel is appropriate for how quickly you want your bees to drain it; I used two holes, because I wanted them to go pretty slowly.

It wasn't what I actually wanted; I really wanted something twice the size of this container, made of thicker material that would accept a tint plug so that I could adjust the output volume.

But this worked surprisingly well, all in all. These containers hold a decent volume of syrup, they won't shatter if you drop them, and the lid doesn't leak around the rim.

I was able to put this container on top of a migratory cover with a hole cut through it, put a weight on top to keep it from being blown away by any vagrant breeze, and leave for a week. I used them on my weaker colonies, reserving my limited supply of 1-gallon and 2-gallon feeders for my biggest colonies. By the time I returned, every one of my hives had emptied its feeder, of course, but inspections today revealed that this one is big enough to support the production of at least some comb, with a pair of 1.5 mm holes.

The common name of this flower, in English, is the forget-me-not, or sometimes the true forget-me-not (because there are about a hundred species in this genus that might be called by this name, as well as some other little blue flowers of this general appearance). It's also sometimes called a water forget-me-not because of its preference for wet ground, and it often grows in boggy environments.

Myosotis scorpioides is the type species for its genus, which may be one of the reasons why I found this specimen in a botanical garden at Anchorage, Alaska; another reason is probably that it's been widely imported to North America as an ornamental plant. It has escaped cultivation in many localities and can be invasive.

I was excited to see this specimen because forget-me-nots are uncommon near my home in Louisiana; I think it may be too hot for them here, and the part of Louisiana where I live is not particularly wet.

If you look closely, you can see that there is a white section at the bases of this flower's petals, surrounding the yellow floral centers. This is sometimes called a "honey guide", although I suspect that it plays little role in attracting bees' attention. But there certainly were plenty of honey bees on the planting that I saw.

The common name of this is woodland sage, and it is native to Europe and a good chunk of western Asia, but also widely naturalized in North America, where it has been imported as an ornamental.

Like the meadowsweet from my last posting, this stuff was in an exhibit in the Alaska Botanical Garden at Anchorage, and on the day of my visit it was crawling with honey bees and other pollinators. Not exactly a shock; genus Salvia is a big hit with honey bees, pretty much without exception.

Unlike meadowsweet, woodland sage can grow in Louisiana, where I live, although my locality is on the warm side for it. In Alaska, this stuff is an annual; the winters are too cold for it to survive.

If I hadn't found this specimen a botanical garden, I would not have ventured to state a species for it, because it hybridizes with a lot of other Salvia species. But I was in a controlled environment, and the botanical garden in question is really well regarded for its attention to things like this.

The common name is meadowsweet. This can be an important source of forage for northerly beekeepers, especially in Western Europe, where it is native and extremely common, and in the northeastern parts of North America, where it is sometimes used as an ornamental planting (and where it sometimes escapes cultivation). My part of the world is much too warm for meadowsweet, so this was my first in-person sighting.

I found this specimen abuzz with honey bees, as well as several species of native bees, butterflies, and wasps, during a leisurely afternoon in the Alaska Botanical Garden at Anchorage, where it was part of a large exhibit of exotic but non-invasive ornamental species.

This has several common names in English, some of which also are used for other species. In my locality, it's usually called 'Devil's walking stick', not to be confused with Oplopanax horridus, which is a shrub native to the Pacific Northwest that has a reputation for causing uncomfortable skin irritation if touched.

Also called 'prickly ash', and 'Hercules club', both of which can lead to confusion with Zanthoxylum clava-herculis and Zanthoxylum americanum, both of which have overlapping ranges with it.

Whatever you call it, this is a large shrub or small tree, usually about 7-15 feet tall, sometimes up to 25 feet tall (say 2-8 meters). Its trunk doesn't get thick, maxing out at maybe 20 centimeters (maybe 7.75 inches). The trunk and stems are covered with sharp spines, leading to both the Latin name spinosa and the 'Devil's walking stick' moniker.

Supposedly the leaves are edible to humans, if harvested young and stewed. But I've never met anyone who did so, and I suspect that it's a famine food.

Of more interest to us as beekeepers, this is a very common shrub that inhabits the edges and understory of wooded areas throughout the SE USA, and it flowers profusely in July and August. The blossoms are white, individually tiny, but arranged in flamboyant sprays that attract all manner of pollinators. In the process of looking for safe footing to get the picture for this entry, I counted at least six different kinds of bee, wasp or butterfly.

Aralia spinosa is not productive of nectar when conditions are dry, but if there's adequate rainfall it produces a good deal of forage. Honey bees like it a lot.

The common names of this plant in English are variously 'winged sumac', 'shining sumac', 'dwarf sumac', or 'flameleaf sumac', and sometimes 'lemonade tree'. This is native to the eastern USA and parts of Canada (a few small, isolated populations in Ontario. There is another variety of this same species, R. copallinum var. lanceolata, that is found in central Texas and south into northeastern Mexico. I am pretty sure there's another subspecies or two, in addition to these, but I don't think they're common.

In my area, the most usual name for this tree is winged sumac; the name refers to the distinctive leaf, which is divided into leaflets connected by a leaf like stem (a rachis). You can see that in the second picture.

It is a remarkably tough plant. It tolerates poor soil, drought, acidic and alkaline conditions, clay or sand, rocks, and salt, and its seeds actually germinate better if they're exposed to temperatures around 90° C, such as you might encounter after a wildfire. Fires also cause its roots to send up fresh stems.

All of this makes winged sumac very tenacious. It likes lots of sunlight, so it tends to show up as a successor species after an area is logged or burned.

Rhus copallinum is most often noticed by humans because its berries are dark purplish red, and are edible, being quite tart and high in vitamin A. They're sometimes macerated in water with a little sugar to make a beverage that most people compare to lemonade. This is a common feature of genus Rhus; the sumac family is widely used as a culinary spice, particularly in Middle Eastern cuisine.

Rhus copallinum is dioecious, which means it has male and female plants. It grows to around 5 meters tall (call it around 15-17 feet), and it's often cultivated as a landscaping choice, because of its toughness combined with its bright orange autumn foliage and its shiny, dark green summer color.

Pictured here are its distinctive flowers, which are arranged as pannicles. They are extremely small, and have a pale, green-yellow coloration. The ones shown here are starting to get old, and are turning brown because of that.

If there is enough rain while this species blooms, it can be the basis for a honey crop. Honey being cured from the nectar is the color of black tea. In a drought, it doesn't really produce much nectar, but it gets by just fine.

Common name is peppervine.

I've become an appreciator of this source of forage for much of the southeastern US, because it has a surprisingly long-lasting bloom, it's ubiquitous, seems hardy against late freezes, and it's visually distinctive for much of its growing season, making it easy to spot.

I return to it today because it's starting to show ripening berries, which are one of the easiest identifying features.

In the first picture attached here, there is a half-ripe cluster of berries. These will eventually take on a purple color so dark that it'll be nearly black. The second picture shows an example of the flowers, which are still blooming even though there's ripening fruit present on the same plant.

There were bees all over the patch of vines that are depicted here, although I wasn't able to get a snapshot of any. This stuff was growing up to my chin, and I wasn't about to wade in and get covered in seed ticks or trombiculid mites. I like y'all but I don't like you well enough to put myself through that.

Common name is peppervine. I wrote about this in September of 2025 and again on May 4 of 2026. Today I return to show the flowers of this species, which can be an important honey source if there's enough of it in bloom.

But what a nondescript, easily overlooked flower this is! This picture doesn't do justice to how small these flowers are; the leaflets here are about the size of my thumb. So the blossoms are TINY things. And they're a sort of greenish yellowish whitish color.

The easiest way to recognize this forage source is to spot it early in the spring season by looking for the distinctive purplish red foliage and stems of its new growth, or to wait for September and look for its dark purple berries. See my previous posts for those identifying marks.

If you're trying to spot peppervine in early spring, you'll need to be pretty observant because it shares habitat with various blackberry, dewberry, raspberry, and other brambles of genus Rubus, which can ALSO have reddish foliage and stems.

Peppervine doesn't have prickles, though. Instead it has tendrils, not unlike grapes.

Common names include Virginia pepperweed, Virginia pepperwort, least pepperwort, pepperweed, and poor man's pepper. This could be some other species of Lepidium, because there are several that are native to the USA, and they look pretty similar to one another. There is also at least the invasive species of Lepidium, L. campestre, as well as L. latifolia.

But I'm pretty sure it's L. virginicum. It's common in meadow/grassy environments in most or the USA, north into southern Canada, and south into Central America.

Genus Lepidium is a member of the Brassicaceae, the mustard/cabbage family.

In my neck of the woods, it's just starting to bloom; this is a late spring/early summer forage for all kinds of pollinators, including honey bees, native solitary bees, and a remarkably large variety of butterflies and moths.

My understanding is that this is an edible plant, all parts of which taste similarly to horseradish; the sobriquet of "poor man's pepper" is because its seedpods can be used as a replacement for black pepper. But it's also sometimes used for salads or cooked in a saute pan, and I think some people add it to bread dough.

This is the type species for the Magnolia genus, and a very common sight throughout the southeastern USA because of its large, fragrant white flowers, which are attractive to a variety of insects, including honey bees.

The common name of this species is the sweetbay magnolia, and it is native to my area of the US, and can be found growing wild. It's also widely cultivated as a landscape plant because of its flowers, as well for its glossy, dark green foliage. In the northern parts of its range (it can be found as far north as Massachusetts), it is deciduous, dropping its leaves with the onset of winter. But I'm far enough south so that it is functionally an evergreen.

This species is not the only magnolia native to my area; there is also the southern magnolia, Magnolia grandiflora, which is not nearly as cold-hardy as this tree.

The two species hybridize, and they are so common around my locality that I'm honestly not 100% that this one isn't a hybrid.

They're not ordinarily listed as major forage sources for bees, but local conditions can depart from expectations, because these species are sometimes very common, very large, and in bloom even when other forage might be damaged by cold or drought.