White acacia as a honey plant

 

Acacia white. The genus Robinia is a deciduous honey plant and pollen plant belonging to the legume family (Fabaceae). White locust as a honey plant in the southern regions has no equal. This is due to the peculiarity of the use of the white locust honey plant in protective afforestation, where it is widely used in shelterbelts, near-river plantations, to fix slopes, etc.

 

Content

• • Description of the honey plant of white acacia
• • White locust as a honey plant
• • Amount of sugar in acacia flowers
• • Acacia pollen
• • When the acacia blossoms
• • Acacia honey
• • Honey from white acacia
• • White locust where it grows
• • Propagation of white acacia honey plant
• • Application of white acacia wood
• • Medicinal properties of white acacia

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Description of the honey plant of white acacia

White acacia is a tall tree up to 25-30 m in height, with an openwork crown, very spreading. The bark of a white acacia is gray-brown in color, strongly cracking. In white acacia, the root system is powerful and deep, gives many offspring.

The leaves of the white acacia are alternate, 11-24 cm long, with opposite leaflets, reaching a length of up to 4.5 cm and up to 2 cm in width.

The leaves are light green above, bluish light green below. Acacia branches covered with sharp thorns.

The inflorescence of the white acacia is a brush, in which there are 5-15 flowers and reaches a length of 10-25 cm, the white acacia brushes drooping, dot the whole tree, which gives the white acacia tree a beautiful appearance during the flowering period and makes the white acacia a spring honey plant.

White acacia flowers sit on lowered pedicels, reaching a length of 6-12 mm.

White acacia flowers have a structure favorable for bees on acacia - a calyx of a wide-bell-shaped appearance, 7-10 mm long and 5-9 mm wide, densely pubescent with short reddish hairs, the teeth of the calyx are two to three times shorter than the tube, triangular in shape.

The corolla of the flower is white or slightly creamy in color, reaches 3.5 cm in diameter. The sail is 1.5-2 cm long and 1.3-1.7 cm wide, with a greenish-yellow spot at the base, the wings are almost equal to the length of the sail . The boat is dumb.

The fruit of the white acacia is a bean of an oblong-linear shape, flat with a curved nose, inside of which there are seeds that can be severely damaged by pests.

White acacia as a honey plant

  Beginning beekeepers have many questions, for example, whether acacia is honey plant or not, which acacia is honey-bearing for bees, what is the most honey-bearing acacia, and others. These questions are caused by the fact that a large number of varieties of acacia are found in forest plantations - white acacia, pink acacia, yellow acacia, sticky acacia, even honey locust is called acacia because of its thorns. All these types of acacia are honey plants, but the most honey-bearing acacia is the white locust. White locust for bees dates nectar and pollen. It is not for nothing that in the Balkans, going towards beekeepers in forests and protective forest plantations, they actively grow white locust, bringing its area to 30% of all forest plantations, and breeders, deducing new varieties of acacia, pay attention to the honey content of acacia, and not only to the growth rate and other characteristics. important for forestry.

How to get the maximum amount of acacia honey from a bee family, how to make a honey family for bribes from acacia?

The white locust is a good honey plant, but it blooms very early, when the weather can interrupt the honey flow from the white locust. The maximum use of a bribe from an acacia is possible if the bees are prepared in advance for honey collection from a white acacia. Because there are certain tricks on how to get honey from acacia.

The amount of sugar in acacia flowers

White locust flowers provide bees with a lot of nectar and pollen. How much sugar is in acacia flowers. Different researchers give different estimates of the amount of sugar in the flowers of the acacia and the amount of sugar in the nectar of the white acacia. Apparently, weather and growing conditions influence. Romanian scientists have determined that a single white acacia flower remains open for 3-4 days and releases nectar for 2 days at 1-1.2 mg per day. Czechoslovak scientists determined that the average amount of nectar from 1 white acacia flower is 2.85 mg and the amount of sugar in white acacia nectar contains 56.5%. However, if it rains, then the nectar will be highly diluted with moisture and the amount of sugar in the white acacia nectar will decrease. In the Rostov region, the sugar content in the nectar of 1 acacia flower is 2.19±0.17 mg/day.

Acacia as a pollen

For the most part, bees collect nectar from acacia flowers. But after the end of the release of nectar, at the end of flowering, bees are attracted to the flowers of white acacia by pollen, which is released in small quantities. On acacia flowers, bees carry a gray-yellow patch.

When does the acacia bloom?

  When does the white acacia bloom? The timing of the flowering of white acacia is strongly influenced by the weather. In the south of Russia, white acacia blooms in mid-May, in the northern regions a little later, and in June acacia blooms in central Russia. In Central Asia and the Caucasus, acacia blooms in May, but the specific flowering period does not depend on only from the weather, but also from the height - after the flowering of the acacia in the valleys, the acacia begins to bloom in the mountains.

In Bulgaria, white locust blooms in May-June, depending on the height.

 

 

acacia honey plant

 

So, white acacia, how much honey per hectare can bees collect? How many hives per 1 ha of acacia should be taken out?

The duration of flowering of white acacia is 2-3 weeks, but intensive nectar secretion is observed only for 7-12 days. One acacia flower blooms on average 5-6 days. But bad weather can cut the honey harvest from acacia to one week.

White acacia begins to bloom from 4 to 8 years of age. White acacia flowers secrete nectar all daylight hours, so bees on white acacia work from dawn to dusk, a strong bee colony can collect up to 10 kg of nectar per day of honey collection from acacia.

How many hives per 1 ha of acacia should be taken out? This should be calculated based on the age of white acacia plantations.

The honey productivity of white locust is very high - up to 1000 kg / ha, some studies indicate a rather wide range of 300-1500 kg per hectare) and is largely determined by the age of the plantations. At the age of 6-12 years, plantings of white locust honey yield at the level of 119-188 kg of honey per 1 ha. Over the years, the honey-bearing of white acacia only increases. There are years when the release of nectar in the heat and dry winds almost completely stops. The accumulation of the sum of effective temperatures up to 376°С indicates that the beginning of flowering of the white locust should be expected in 4–5 days. It should be noted that in white acacia, honey production varies greatly from year to year, depending on winter. As a rule, if the winter was cold, but the acacia did not freeze and bloom, then the acacia flowers will secrete nectar well. In the conditions of the steppe Don region, the honey productivity of acacia is 500 kg per 1 hectare.

As a rule, amateur beekeepers in the Kuban receive 8-15 kg of honey, especially experienced beekeepers, having prepared bee colonies for honey collection from acacia, receive 35-40 kg of honey from one hive. In Ukraine, when migrating to honey collection from acacia, they can get up to 80 kg of honey from a bee colony. In Romania, there is a description of acacia honey collection in 80 kg of white acacia honey. In Hungary, a case is described of the export of 6,000 bee colonies to the forests of white locust, the average honey yield from acacia turned out to be 32 kg, and well-prepared families collected 51 kg of honey. Also in the Kuban in the spring of 2002, strong bee colonies collected up to 80 kg of honey.

In Bulgaria, the honey productivity of white acacia is from 110 to 300 kg of honey per 1 hectare.

 

White acacia honey

Honey from a white acacia of excellent quality, watery-transparent, with a delicate pleasant smell and taste, does not crystallize for almost years, remaining in a liquid state, therefore it is suitable for wintering bees; during crystallization, honey becomes white, fine-grained.

The honey is of very high quality, so in many countries of the Balkan Peninsula it is branded honey, which is exported to the EU countries. In Russia and Ukraine, honey is also considered an expensive variety of honey. You can read more about honey in the article honey from white acacia.

White acacia melliferous where it grows

White locust honey plant grows, preferring fertile soils, but can also grow on poor soils. White locust is very photophilous and well drought-resistant. Can tolerate soil salinity.

White locust grows well in the first 10 years of life, it can add up to 120 cm per year, in the next 30 years grow up to 50 centimeters per year, and after 40 years about 20 cm per year.

The ability of white locust to withstand soil salinity and dry climates, as well as the ability to produce large root shoots, together with the speed of growth, is widely used in protective forest plantations. White locust is actively used as part of soil-protective forest belts, ravine and flatter plantations, where acacia is planted with other good denunciations, such as: apricot, apple, cherry plum, pear and various shrubs - amorphous, caragana, spirea and others.

The white locust honey plant is also widely used on the mountain slopes to protect against mudflows, where it is planted together with the highest ailanthus, with which they jointly create almost impenetrable thickets.

The white locust is a heat-loving plant, therefore it has received the widest distribution in the arid zone - the south of Russia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Moldova, Ukraine, the countries of the Balkan Peninsula (in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Serbia - in these countries the white locust occupies 20 - 30% of the total forest area).

In central Russia, white locust is also cultivated, but to a lesser extent, due to the fact that it can be damaged by frost. However, recently, new varieties of white acacia are being created that are resistant to frost, which makes it possible to cultivate it up to the line St. Petersburg - Yoshkar-Ola - Kazan - Ufa. So the white locust is a honey plant in central Russia too, and not just in the south.

In addition to protective forest plantations, white locust is widely used for landscaping settlements, this is facilitated not only by the beautiful crown and beautiful flowers, the pleasant aroma of white locust flowers, but also by the fact that white locust grows well in urban conditions, it is smoke-dust- gas-resistant and at the same time tolerates a haircut. For landscaping, several types of decorative white acacia have been bred. Thus, the white locust is a honey plant for urban beekeeping, which, under certain circumstances, can provide the main honey collection for the urban beekeeper.

White locust is used not only as a honey plant or forest culture, but also to expand the food base in hunting farms (leaves and branches are nutritious food for ungulates, acacia seeds are for pheasants).

Propagation of white acacia honey plant

In the southern regions, in recent decades, there has been such an unpleasant process as sawing the white acacia by the local population for firewood and wood for furniture. Therefore, many forest belts are already unsuitable for beekeeping, beekeepers need to think about planting white locust in inconvenient areas or for planting greenery in settlements.

Acacia for bees, which one to plant? From which acacia do bees get their honey? Bees visit almost all types of acacia, but it is better to plant several types of acacia - white and yellow acacia. It is easy to plant acacia for bees with seeds of both species.

White acacia honey plant successfully propagated by seeds. For propagation of white acacia, seeds are collected in autumn until they are damaged by pests. To accelerate the germination of white acacia seeds, they are subjected to scarification. For scarification in winter, the seeds are ground with sand or processed in groats or clover graters. As a result, when sowing, the seeds swell faster and sprout. Germination in this case is up to 80%. Sow seeds in spring. Instead of scarification, seeds can be scalded before sowing, for this white acacia seeds are poured with hot water of 80 - 90 C, actively mixed until the water cools slightly, and then left for a day. If some seeds are not swollen, they are selected and poured with hot water again. The swollen seeds are slightly dried and sown, as a rule, shoots appear after 2 weeks. Seeds are sown at the rate of 2.5-3 g of seeds per linear meter of the bed. Close up the seeds in the forest-steppe and forest zone by 2-3 cm, in the steppe by 3-4 cm. When the seedlings reach standard sizes, they are transplanted to a permanent place.

You can also use the vegetative propagation path of the black acacia honey plant: with the help of root segments, root suckers, stumps and grafts.

Application of white acacia wood

White acacia is a honey plant that has valuable wood. The wood of the white acacia is hard, therefore it is used to make doors, which are stronger than oak. From wood of a white acacia the fine parquet turns out. White acacia wood, having high strength, elasticity and toughness, is indispensable in the manufacture of hand tools. Therefore, it is actively used for the manufacture of handles for shovels and handles for other tools.

Acacia wood does not rot and is not damaged by pests, therefore it is often used in underground and underwater works, in basements, etc.

Medicinal properties of white acacia

White locust honey plant, which is widely used in folk medicine. In folk medicine, flowers and bark of white acacia are used. As a rule, preparations from white acacia are used to treat coughs, flu, pain in the stomach and intestines, in inflammatory processes of the urinary tract, and also in combination with herbs in the first stages of hypertension. At the same time, it must be remembered that white acacia bark is poisonous, therefore, in no case should an overdose of drugs be allowed to avoid poisoning. It is necessary to be treated with white acacia bark under the supervision of a doctor.

In general, in folk medicine, preparations from the flowers of the White acacia, together with other medicinal plants in the form of fees, are used as a hypotensive, antispasmodic, antipyretic, anti-inflammatory, astringent, expectorant, hemostatic, mild laxative and diuretic.