You can see them out gathering pollen sometimes, on a warm sunny winter day. It helps if you have some nectar and pollen plants. Recently I was at a local nursery and saw a table full of Gaillardia. The honeybees were going from bloom to bloom, gathering what the flowers had to offer. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship. The bees get the pollen and nectar they need. The pollen they will make into a product called bee bread, a high-protein food for larvae and adult bees. The nectar will be made into honey. Although the cartoons make it seem like honey is made for bears, it is made for the bees themselves. Bears, humans, and other animals just steal it from the bees. The flowers get the pollen moved by the bees from flower to flower so that pollination occurs, and seeds can begin to grow.
On warm, sunny days the bees venture out to find the things that are blooming. Even when we think nothing is blooming, there are usually things in bloom. By the end of December, maple trees are in bloom. They produce pollen that bees love in those reddish, scraggly flowers. You might have never noticed them before. In December, violets also bloom and sweet alyssum. And soon after, the dreaded dandelions! Honeybees shrink the size of their hive populations in the fall, eliminating the drones and allowing the birth rate to slow down so there are fewer to maintain through the sparse months. Honeybees are challenged by varroa mites, and other pests, but there are tools to keep them in check.
While honeybees are not native to the United States, we do have 29 varieties of bees that are native to North Florida and love our plants. They are easy to support. They are attracted to basil plants in bloom. Blue basil, holy basil, Thai basil, and purple basil all draw bees. They must be allowed to bloom to attract them…