HoneyBeeNet is one of the more surprising finds on the NASA website. There you’ll find a Honey Bee Forage Map showing the 14 regions of the Ayers and Harman honey bee forage map, “based on natural patterns of land use and flora.”
Click on the map to see a list of honey bee forage species and their blooming periods for any region within a state.
Although the text says “state” on all pages (e.g. “state of NB” for New Brunswick’s listing), this resource really does give plant information for our provinces — forage plant species and blooming periods.
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Honey Bee Forage Species:
- New Brunswick
- Nova Scotia
- Prince Edward Island
The large pink area of the map that covers the northern boreal region of Canada has no species listed at present, but clicking on other areas of the map will take you to a list of honey bee forage plants for that area. The most important nectar sources for honey bees are highlighted. Here in the Maritimes, however, where the bee season is rather short, the earlier blooming species (such as maple, alder, dandelion, and willow) are important as sources of pollen as well as nectar. Pollen sources are needed for brood production to help the bee colonies build back up to strength after wintering over.
[Thanks to Bob Seaman for suggesting this link.]
I really enjoyed this site. Someone posted it on Twitter and I followed it. I have shared it with others. It is very helpful & informational.
Hi Teddi! It is a great site isn’t it? So much information from every aspect of bees. Are you a beekeeper?
You have shamed me into fixing my page.
Somehow our maps have made it to the far reaches of NB Canada.
This page is getting way more traffic than we ever expected. I have to admit when I was creating the page, I considered the fact that I’d be calling the Canadian provinces ’states’, but I took the shortcut, thinking it wouldn’t get much traffic or be noticed. Well, I came across this page and was a little embarrassed. Of course you have provinces, and we have states, but I didn’t go the extra yard in my code to check if the selected region was from the US or Canada, and refer to the region accordingly. My apologies, happy to fix it and to know you both found it, and found it useful. Thank you for sharing it among your community.
Hey Jaime! We have people everywhere :) Well, scoping for new finds to add to the site anyway. Rebecca keeps us well informed of the goings on. Thanks for the note! No need to be embarrassed, just happy to find a site with your info in it.