NWOBA, thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk to your group last evening.  The room was full of mostly new beekeepers with a few old folks mixed in for good measure.  I wish I had more good answers for the group and I hope our bees have the best season ever.  (It’s just the normal beekeeper dream.)

VSBA, thanks for a wonderful, wonderful event at your Spring, 2012 meeting in Richmond, VA.   (For those who don’t know, just a few days before the event, the meeting site had to be completely changed.)  Everything worked well on essentially no notice.  Great meeting site, great crowd, and good spirits.  What an outstanding bunch of beekeepers!

To date, I am in the minority.  For most of you, Maple is an obvious, viable source of early spring pollen.  I certainly don’t doubt your observations.  On my 4 medium-sized Maples, with binoculars, for about 5 observations on 4 different days, I could see may be 10-15 bees per observation.  No clouds of bees.  No hum of bees.  Just the occasional forager.  Certainly, these casual observations are not science.  There are far too many variables not considered.  In Ohio, beekeepers have the same issue with soybeans.  Rarely, rarely a surplus honey crop from soybean – yet in other states, beekeepers routinely get major crops.   I will be watching my maples again next year.