# birdsfoot trefoil for bees?



## pp270

Has anyone planted birdsfoot trefoil for their honeybees? Is so do they work it and does it produce good honey?


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## Adrian Quiney WI

It's a fantastic plant, and a consistent honey plant. It blooms most of the summer. I read somewhere, I think on Kirk Webster's site that it was planted deliberately long ago as a cattle feed. It grows in the ditches around here. If you have the resources to plant a lot of it go for it!


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## Michael Bush

>Has anyone planted birdsfoot trefoil for their honeybees?

Yes.

> Is so do they work it

Yes.

>and does it produce good honey? 

I think so, but a lot of other things are blooming at the same time, so I can't say I know exactly what it tastes like... but I love it. It even does well when mowed like in your yard as does white dutch clover.


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## Ben Franklin

My road sides are covered with it, and I have asked the road department not to mow. I like the fact that it blooms most of the summer.


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## Dave Burrup

We planted it for the first time this spring. It is unbelievably slow establishing, so be prepared to weed. It is a very slow growing weak seedling.
Dave


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## Ben Franklin

Dave did you plant it with anything else? Legumes sometimes need a cover crop, like annual rye?


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## Moccasin

Sometimes a plant will grow well in one part of the country but not another. Also some places it will yield nectar and other places none. Goldenrod does nothing in my part of the Ozarks but is a major Fall producer elsewhere. Sue Hubbel a famous bee author remarked about Goldenrod not yielding here in my part of the country. I could not get Birdsfoot trefoil to grow in my pastures. I am trying sweet clover.


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## Ben Franklin

Moccasin: If you have well drained soil try some alfalfa.


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## Moccasin

Ben Franklin said:


> Moccasin: If you have well drained soil try some alfalfa.


Ben is alfalfa better than sweet clover. I tried it too because I feed Alfalfa to my horses in winter. It seems the sweet clover is more drought hardy. We have had our 4th Summer drought. Thanks


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## mathesonequip

alfalfa requires a higher soil ph [less acid] than clover, alfalfa tollerants almost desert dry, trefoil does not compete with other crops, it is not grown much any more, the forage tonnage yield is low, it does relatively better on poor well drained land and is acid soil tolerant. red clover is an annual but reseeds itself pretty well, it is a good choice for rich moist land and is a little more tolerant to acid soils, white clover is loved by bees it does not compete well with tall grass at all, it makes a nice place for bees if it is mowed a lot. ladino and yellow clover are the clover equivelents of trefoil they do not compete well in good stands of forage. crown vetch is a biannual [2 years] that does real well on hillsides and ditches if the are mowed late or left alone it will increase on its own, it is a first choice to control erosion it will dominate with a thick mat over the years. all these legumes are appreciated by the bees and will make similar light honeys.


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## RogerCrum

Birds foot trefoil is abundant in SE WI, my bees work it whenever it is the best forage available. Produces all season, reseeds itself and yields abundant light, sweet honey. However, unless you are harvesting it as animal forage, it just does not make economic sense to plant it just for honeybee forage. Establishes slowly so sow with a cover crop like oats or annual grasses.


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## bugmeister

The stuff is gold! It takes a full season to establish so if you plant now you will see the best effects starting next spring and every spring and summer after that. you can grow this on a brick and if you get the seed that you can inoculate it just keeps improving the soil with fixed nitrogen so it is a great companion plant and soil improver. I have planted this in central Maine on gravel along with timothy, alphalpha and white clover and only the trefoil and clover thrive. ill cover this all with winter rye in early September and the following spring its everywhere. great stuff!


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## Dave Burrup

We have white clover, alfalfa, Sainfoin, Red Clover, and sweet clover. I would say that the Sainfoin and sweet clover are equal in attractiveness to the bees. Red clover is a short lived perennial and not popular with honey bees. The white clover has the longest blooming period, and is readily used by all pollinators. This spring we planted a patch of trefoil and crimson clover. They are too young to bloom yet. Crimson clover is the annual clover. The trefoil is very slow establishing and the weeds are a big problem.
Dave


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## WesternWilson

Dave, can you give us an update on your bee pasture species recommendations?

Regards,
Janet


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## Dave Burrup

The Sainfoin, White clover, and sweet clover are by far the best. The Red Clover is worthless for honey bees. The Crimson clover was hardly worked at all. I suspect that our high pH soils cause it to not produce nectar. Catmint is a fantastic bee plant. It will bloom from the first week of July until a hard freeze with bees all over it. The trefoil only produced flowers one season before it died out. The bees were only moderately interested in it. The Catmint and Trefoil both die out in their second winter. The Catmint will reseed itself. I never found a volunteer Trefoil plant. It produced a lot of seed, but did not re-establish.
This year we rotated some of the Sainfoin to roundup ready alfalfa to get a handle on weeds that thrive with the Sainfoin. We had a good bloom on the earliest plantings. The bees were not much interested in it. It was in bloom for two weeks before I found any bees on it. If they can find something other than alfalfa to work they will not touch the alfalfa.


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## mathesonequip

trefoil will grow and stay on less fertile well drained land. it does not do well on better soils because of competition from other plants. it seems to do well mixed in thin timothy stands. it also does well on roadsides that are not real fertile.trefoil takes a long time to get established [years]. when planting 4 or 5 lbs. per acre is enough in the mix, as i said it takes time to get going.


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## WesternWilson

Catmint is also my favourite bee plant. I recommend it to everyone and donate it around. Easily started from purchased seed, easy to divide, is not invasive, flowers all season, bees love it.


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## Solarbeez

If you want to see what the Bird's Foot Trefoil plants are doing when the bees land on the flowers, check out this video that I shot a couple of years ago. At the time, all I was doing was trying to keep the flower in the viewfinder. It was only after looking at the video on the laptop that I noticed the flowers actually cooperating with the bees.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhnsRlSJUJw


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## biggraham610

That was an awesome video. I am planning on starting several acres of trefoil w/crimson clover(covercrop) in the spring on waste areas. G


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## Solarbeez

Yes, they seem to like the Bird's Foot Trefoil. I've lived here over 40 years and I know that I never planted it. I don't know where it came from, but it grows up through the grass and tall weeds. Here on the Oregon Coast, it blooms in late June and early July.


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