• Our bees like white clover, any time of the day, and especially when it is in the sun.
• White clover grows well around here, with very little coaxing, and it comes up year after year ... stronger than the last. It is apparently best to scatter clover seed before the first frost, then as the soil crystallizes and thaws the seed will drop into an ideal depth.
• In Central Alabama a 25lb bag of White Durana Clover will cost about $120, but is a perennial and will come up every spring.
• Our bees like buckwheat, which grows well around here. Buckwheat grows best when you till it in a few inches. We tried just scattering the seed and letting it sit, but won't waste our time doing it that way again, as very little came up.
• Buckwheat is visited by our bees mostly in the morning ... very little after noon.
• In Central Alabama a 50lb bag of buckwheat will cost about $40, but has to be replanted. Our buckwheat just finished flowering (end of June) and has gone back to seed. We're waiting for a soil test to come back, (which will tell us why some areas of our land are more productive than others), then we're going to till the seed back in and see what happens.
Here's an interesting link regarding grants for beekeeping:
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/grants-starting-apiary-20755.html
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