Thanks Vance, Tbeek, and BlueBee! I think it would be really cool to keep track of the dates every year to compare...And to assess the honeybee activity.... And when you decided to "hibernate" your hives; what transitions you made (like what Thomas described); last year versus this year; etc. In Kansas everything was a month early in terms of how warm the weather turned. In early March we had 80 degree weather! :shock: Back when I was a kid we used to get avalanche type of snows, like really bitterly cold winters and snow even in May, but not for over 15 years now...! I was actually expecting a very warm and hot October/November like last year, but it was far cooler than what I predicted.
And neither did I expect you folks in the Northern States to be that cold already in terms of the hard frosts. I hear that in Minnesota it's been been a scorcher of a summer as with Canada (in the 100s in Ontario for 2011)....
BlueBee and Vance, it seems that honeybees are workaholics if given the chance....
Another thing: after comparing notes from many gardens, I now realize why some gardens have later blooming Russian sage...I do believe that the RS' natural state is to bloom very, very early like May, but people are reporting July many a time....I am thinking the reason is that they are pruning their Russian sage...I just discovered this a few days after I wrote up this thread..I couldn't figure out why in my locale we had such early Russian sage....until I put 2 and 2 together....All the ones that were left tall and big did indeed have that super early bloomtime.
BlueBee, I love, love, loooove camelias but they don't grow in our zone and would hate our alkaline heavy clay soils...My dad has gardenias though, but he brings them into the garage for the winter...Hey, I thought bees would not like camelias??? Kansas honeybees though are notoriously picky...
Vance it seems you are experiencing the high amount of bee foraging that I am experience so let's keep our eyes peeled to see if this year's killer frosts will be super late...Here in my locale, we used to get killer frosts around mid-October when I was a kid. As an adult, the killer frosts are now in mid-December....I consider a true killer frost when things actually die (non-revivable) and the frost remains during the day....I call it crunchy grass, lol! In 2009, we got verrrrrrry cold but it was only during mid-January and mid-February, 12 degree-17 degree temps. But then after the cold period, the temps soared straight up and Spring literally felt like Summer.
Just to be sure, Thomas, do you prune your Russian sage at all? Mine is left completely unchecked. I wouldn't be surprised it that RS turns out to be some sort of mutant giant in my garden. I refuse to prune because I can't stand losing even a single purple petal!!! My RS is like the energizer bunny, they keep going and going and going....Not once has that plant ever ceased to bloom. Also note: first year RS does not count in terms of early blooming. It seems that they spend a lot of their time acclimating to the soil and adjusting themselves to their new environment when first planted. I noticed that all of my 1st year RS take awhile to get established and only afterwards will they bloom...But once in the garden, yup, RS is a super early plant to bloom for me.....
Russian sage in my climate is one of the hardiest winter plants, it never stops until it actually snows and it seems to laugh at the hard frost....