Plants for bee forage - teaming up for buying power

OK here’s a thought … I have recently lost a really good garden centre by me - The bloke retired and the business has closed.

I was thinking rather than spend money on petrol going further afield, why not order plant seed that are bee friendly online?

Then comes the issue if you make an order, to get the best value you need to buy £20 worth of seeds.

So do I end up with thousands of seeds and only plant a few but get a good variety or only a few seeds, less variety and suffer P&P?

Brain kicks into gear… we are all trying to find locals with flow hives and make connections, why don’t the local groups get together, order a nice variety of local plants/seeds split the cost among the local group but all end up with a nice variety of bee friendly, good forage plants and have nice gardens, share?

Any thoughts??

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That sounds like a good way to team up, I think it would be helpful too because everyone could throw in ideas for the best plants for the local area. We are working on creating a Clubs and associations directory which will help new beekeepers find local groups. It looks like we are getting close to having it up and running. Any clubs are welcome to add their details if they haven’t already done so.
http://community.honeyflow.com/

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Good idea.
email all your fellow local BKA members.
Our local BKA does all sorts of bulk buy from Invert syrup to Jars to flower seed and all sorts of beekeeping sundries.

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Here in the UK most BKAs are affiliated to the BBKA, WBKA and SBKA and they all have lists of the associations on their websites so the info is already there, also Google is your friend :slight_smile:

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Something that just occurred to me. Why not get some little ziplock pouches and put a half ounce or so of seeds in attached to a 1/2 page “How can you help the bees” flyer and drop them off in your neighborhood. Worst case it costs you some of your time and a few cents worth of seeds. Best case you have a neighborhood chock full of forage and nectar for you bees that you don’t even have to take care of.

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I was planning on doing just that!. The Co-op did it here 4 or so years ago and then others have done it since. That is sort of how I found out about the bee crisis in the first place :wink:

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