In the South West of Australia we have been talking about Marri so maybe a few photos will help you understand why we get excited.
I will start small and go to big.
First photo is as close as my camera will let me focus but you can see the sheen of nectar inside one of the flowers. These were our sweets as children. Pick the blossom off and run your tongue inside.
Next Photo is self explanitory. A big bunch of first photo
To get a bit more perspective a young tree
Then go to a typical tree. Bear in mind these are a forest trees down this way so when some one likened the flowering to “the forest being covered in snow”
we get a little excited for the bees.
Do the bees take much pollen from marri? There’s not much in flower around me other than marri. I havent seen them collecting pollen on it but the boughs are too high to really tell.
There’s a lot of pale green pollen clumps that have dropped through the SBB, so there’s a lot of pollen coming from somewhere and am assuming its from marri.
I believe so. My bees have been an orange pollen lot until this last week. When it started turning white.
During my “sit at the hive” this morning I noticed huge loads of white pollen coming in. I do believe this is from the Marri trees.
Good to get a pollen colour for the marri. And good for you to know what your source is.
My bees too have been bringing in a lot of deep orange colored pollen the last 3 weeks, and I absolutely have no idea where they are getting them from. Now they bring in more other colors, white to beige green in all shades.
Guess we have no marri, unless we planted it 20 years ago unknowingly.
I know we have blue quandong, coz the bees sure are into that, but there must be heaps of other stuff about I can’t identify yet.
It’s nice bordering a National Park, with subtropical pockets accessable to the bees, just feel frustrated there is no mapping of flora available. This National is quite wild.
Decades back, as a herbalist in Europe, I was able to identify any plant,
If anybody is able to point me towards a good source to identify our plants around here, please let me know.
I think I have exhausted my (rather slow) web searches.
I do want to learn and study where my bees gather, but I think this part of Australia is as yet fairly unexplored in all detail it seems. There certainly are not a great deal of publications about it.
Maybe if @busso came around things could get identified.
I’m just stumped for now, and I have been trying so hard to identify plants, but often I just give up, too hard basket.
Just too much diversity here.
Australia Northern NSW/SouthQLD is the area I talk about.
The marri pix were so educational, and inspire me to question if we could have a series on natural nectar/pollen flow vegetation in Australia.
If everybody could chirp in and tell about their local bee collection source, even without identification, perhaps as a group, we could find out?
I am surprised how unexplored and undocumented Australia still is. Our small population perhaps does not warrant the resources it takes to map each square meter, sure not the vast National Parks.
We found a frog here once that was meant to have died out ages ago via a university audible program, and found a lizard that didn’t exist.
Sure exciting to live next to a National Park.
I am still a tad frustrated at the difficulty of finding out what my bees are feasting on. And feast they do right now.
Pretty much all that’s flowering here atm is marri and the bees are carrying big white saddle bags of what could only be from the marri.
Like @busso I have a sit at the hives although after work and chill i am savouring the sweet smells emanating from them. I’m watching the frames slowly filling with nectar but in the morning they’re empty I was seeing a bit of pollen going into the FF but in the last week or so they have drawn frames of comb which now obscure the FF.
I’m seeing a few eucalypts budding up now some for the second time this year.
Wonder what the honey fanning smell outside the hive is like for you guys with the marri.
Coz the last few days I detect a caramel smell round my first really strong hive (Lala hive). Never knew the smells would change so dramatically.
Still don’t know where my bees take it from.
It’s funky when you can see them popping a pollen bead into a flow cell with nectar, how it changes the colour, and then they shift it anyway. At least now I know for sure they mix pollen into their nectar for the honey we love.
I have friends in Jullaten (Nth Qld next to Daintree) and stayed a week there a couple of years back but I hardly knew a plant and as you say they are diverse.
. My expertise lies in what grows around me.
If you want to learn more. A great place to start is to join Association of Societies for Growing Australian Plantsanpsa.org.au/ and Native Plants Queensland
www.sgapqld.org.au/
Full bloom here, I took a couple of flowers off to show my daughter the nectar and as the branch flicked back I got literally showered in nectar!
I had no idea they had so much nectar, no wonder the colonys are now booming and smelling that same sweet scent.
These are everywhere all in different stages of bloom. I’ve never noticed it being so prolific.
I guess the big question is what is marri honey like?
Hiya Snowflake, the photo was taken yesterday in Kalamunda.
@Dunc yep, I’ve been jealously watching the bloom down in the flats slowly creeping towards the hills and in the last 2 weeks it’s started to pick up here and hopefully it should go for quite a while judging by the differing stages of bloom.
Hopefully the rain today doesn’t wash away all the nectar!!!
The taste is also a bit stronger than I imagined. Incredibly sweet and a distinctive pleasant, taste even if it is quite strong. Nothing wishy washy here. I could go into all the flavours, the citrus overtones and mulberry taste on the back of the tongue with just a hint pineapple and a pleasant strawberry after taste but I won’t, cause it just tastes great.
My first harvest was 18 months in the making and is of a similar colour to yours above and tastes magic (biased).
My hive location is on the edge of suburbia on one side and the other side backing on semi-rural/forest. I suppose the honey would need to be described as wildflower or mixed source honey.
I am sure that some of it is a result of Marri but there was nothing like the bloom we have this year near my place.
The honey is relatively strong tasting but everyone who has been given some is raving about it (incl. other beekeepers) and lining up for more. I hope that the next batch can live up to this.
WAAS are having a tasting comp in conjunction with the meetings shortly, might enter to get some perspective.
down this way so when some one likened the flowering to “the forest being covered in snow”
