# Honey Production from Mustard plants.



## Allen Martens (Jan 13, 2007)

I have an opportunity to but bees on a section of mustard. Does it produced honey? Compared to canola?


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## Brian Suchan (Apr 6, 2005)

Somebody grows mustard? For what? It's a weed around here that turns the alfalfa fields yellow till the 1st cutting.


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## m0dem (May 14, 2016)

Brian Suchan said:


> Somebody grows mustard? For what? It's a weed around here that turns the alfalfa fields yellow till the 1st cutting.


I have that mustard, I've seen about 2 bees on mustard weeds. Do you know if it produces any honey?


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## busy bee apiary (Aug 7, 2010)

Mustard "French's" does produce honey but not near the volume as canola and it does have a little color to it. The bees build very nice and will often get a one deep jump start on the honey production as it is just starting to bloom in my area of northern Montana often times 10 days ahead of the clover and alfalfa.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

I'm pretty sure the honey we got in supers early this yr was " mustard" I was able to harvest about 3 gal of my strongest 2 hives...... whatever the mass yellow flowers actually are around here I do not know. Typically we wouldn't get anything off them and it all goes to build up as they are out first week of april. This yr was waaaay different. I saw the last field of it get disked under in my forage area 4 days ago. I also think this is why our swarm season hit 3 weeks early and lasted so long. even the old timers here have never seen a swarm season like this one.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Yes, the wild mustard will produce some golden sweet honey.
We have many such fields around here in the early Spring time.
My understanding is that there are 2 types one is a Spring blooming and the
other is a summer blooming. Go ahead to try and put some hives there.
Be prepare to do some heavy swarm management as they will be filling up the
6 frames with pollen. Good to use for the new splits and going through a summer
dearth too.


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

Our country here is full of a couple varieties of wild mustard I have never seen a bee on. Domestic mustard creates a good flow but it usually supported brood rearing before the alfalfa kicked in.


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## Allen Martens (Jan 13, 2007)

To clarify, this mustard is not wild mustard and is being planted now in a field where the soybeans where cultivated down due to moisture stress. It will be blooming after canola I assume and I am trying to decide whether it is worth my while to move bees to it. The move has to be for honey production. If I am just maintaining my bees and producing a little surplus honey, I might as well move them to my fall yards.

I am not sure what variety it is. From the little research I have done I think there are 3 types grown on the Canadian prairies.


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

Brian Suchan said:


> Somebody grows mustard? For what? It's a weed around here that turns the alfalfa fields yellow till the 1st cutting.


planted in pumpkin fields and then plowed under before pumpkin is planted. keeps some pumpkin pests at bay naturally, maybe nematodes but not certain. anyway seems to work as all the pumpkin growers practice this cropping method.


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## busy bee apiary (Aug 7, 2010)

Hey Allen, my post is in regards to your question about farmed mustard. Seed grown for french's mustard.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

The domesticated variety does not produce much honey. They will
provide lots of pollen for brood rearing though. Again it depends on how many acres and
how many foragers available to collect at the right timing just like the
canola at blooming time. If this is for experimental purpose then put a few hives there
to see for yourself. Maybe the brood rearing will help with your Autumn flow. Besides, they
are a short few weeks blooming anyway.


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## Allen Martens (Jan 13, 2007)

busy bee apiary said:


> Hey Allen, my post is in regards to your question about farmed mustard. Seed grown for french's mustard.


Thanks. I missed that.


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## crazylocha (Mar 26, 2013)

The different mustard varieties are critical to timing down here in FL. Mustard greens (and it's cousin Collards) leave a bunch of volunteers, escapees if you will. They give some of the best pollen for building hives up just before any flow. Post Orange flow and before gallberry breaks especially. 

Very curious to the type plant they are growing in the great hockey north.


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## Biermann (May 31, 2015)

Hi Allen,

Just wondering how you made out with the mustard? Did you get much honey off it? I have a field beside me this year that is in full bloom and noticed lots of bees in it. On the other side is alfalfa for seed, with leaf-cutter bees and the honey bees are in this too. I seeded buckwheat last year particularly for the honey bees, but they where so heavy in to the alfalfa already that they ignored the buckwheat complete.

Cheers, happy beeing, Joerg


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Was it Mancan buckwheat?

Crazy Roland


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## Biermann (May 31, 2015)

Actually it was seeded with certified Mancan.

Joerg


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Roland, your experience with Mancan is interesting to me. You may remember my post about a small test plot of Mancan and the bees going crazy over it. It's the only variety we have available locally. I lost a stand of Hubam clover due to an untimely herbicide application on my part and I just plowed it under and planted 3 acres of Mancan last week. I will update when it blooms and see what the usage is. Three acres is a piddly amount and it will bloom during our complete dearth in the summer so I suspect they will use it, like it or not.

One thing for certain, there in no pollen gathered from Mancan. Maybe that's true of all buckwheat but I thought it was a large pollen producer.


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## Allen Martens (Jan 13, 2007)

Joerg

I got about 25 pounds of honey per hives and a ton of pollen came in.

I wouldn't move to mustard if canola was available. These fields were late and relatively close so it was worth the move.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

Maybe not all Mancan is mancan. Ours can from Petersons in the Dakotas.

Crazy Roland


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Maybe so. I don't know the source on either the first planting or the second, but I do feel almost certain that they came from different sources. I bought them at 2 different local stores and one was in a brown paper seed bag and this last was in white woven plastic seed bags. 

I think prior to fall seed ordering season I am going to ask one of them to order a variety other than Mancan so I can try it next year. None of it is grown for a crop here, it's only grown in deer food plots so the variety won't matter to those guys.

Which variety did you get the best yield from? Also did they collect pollen from the variety that they preferred over Mancan? Maybe wrongly so, but I have just about convinced myself that I've read about buckwheat being a large pollen source and that's actually why I planted it originally. I wanted a summer source for pollen.


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