Buckwheat is an annual representative of the Buckwheat family - the most important sowing cereal crop after wheat, rye and barley. In addition, buckwheat, due to its flowering, is a valuable melliferous crop.
What a buckwheat plant
In the European part of Russia, Kazakhstan, Siberia and the Far East, buckwheat is used not only for the production of buckwheat, but also as a honey plant. Buckwheat has a ribbed stem, about half a meter high. It has 8 to 10 lateral branches. The leaves are alternate, cordate-triangular. Buckwheat flowers are white or pink-white, bisexual, with stamens of different lengths. They are located in corymbose inflorescences, which are located at the ends of the axillary branches. The buckwheat flower has 8 nectaries (according to the number of stamens). The pollen of the flower is dark yellow.
Flowering buckwheat
Buckwheat bloom begins at the end of July. A buckwheat field in bloom looks very beautiful - as if shrouded in a whitish-pink cloud. The flowering period is long - more than a month. During this time, about a thousand flowers are formed on one plant, each of which blooms for only one day. The nectar that they secrete is readily collected by bees, especially in warm weather (+ 26 ° C). When the humidity rises to 80%, the sugar content of the nectar increases, so buckwheat honey quickly crystallizes.
From one hectare of sown buckwheat, bees collect up to 100 kilograms of honey per season. The honey collected from buckwheat is considered to be very valuable and healing. It is brown in color, has a pungent taste and strong aroma.
Buckwheat as a honey plant
Bees not only collect nectar from buckwheat flowers, but also pollinate the crop, which increases its yield. Therefore, pollinating bees during the flowering period of buckwheat are specially brought to the fields, exposing 3-4 hives per hectare. If you are just a couple of days late with the delivery of bees and miss the beginning of buckwheat flowering, up to 6 kg of honey is lost per hectare.
When mineral fertilizers are applied, buckwheat flowers emit much more nectar. And buckwheat seeds are tied more actively if bees visit each flower many times. Therefore, buckwheat is sown in wide rows, and its predecessors are usually legumes or winter crops.
In order to prolong the flowering of buckwheat and the time of honey collection, it is sown twice or three times per season, with an interval of 10-15 days. Buckwheat seeds can be sown quite early, as soon as the soil warms up to + 12 ° C. And buckwheat blooms all August. At this time, other nectar plants are already finishing flowering, so buckwheat flowers are the only source of nectar for hardworking bees.
