Plantain Nectar is real

Witnessed nectar in plantain flowers
Once upon a time when I was still young (6 to 12 years), I would with my young brothers run to suck nectar from the plantain flowers before the birds (hummingbirds –), and bees eat it. This was very common during the school holidays when we had a lot of free time throughout the day.

The plantain flowers contain sweet substances (a size of a drop in every flower) which are sweet like honey. The bees and birds collect this substance every time ie they keep visiting every flower throughout the day. We would find a lot of nectar between 9am and 11am in the morning.

Therefore for us to find nectar, we should be available by 9am and again more flowers open petals at around 4pm and we should be available before the birds eat everything. The flowers open up at around 7:30 in the morning and more flowers open at around 2pm. The juice becomes sweet after 2 hours.
The competition between us and the bees was stiff in that even when the flowers fall on the ground, the bees come and suck them from there. We would sometimes get stung by the bees when not careful!

It is very unfortunate that many plantain plantations were destroyed by a virus called Banana Wilt which destroys the whole plant including the fruit. The researchers suggested that the virus was transmitted by bees when they visit one flower and then to another and the knives used by people during pruning or cutting off excess leaves.

Today the bees are no longer collecting a lot of nectar from plantain flowers because many farmers are cutting the flowers right away after the productive clusters as advised by the ministry of agriculture.

Our friend Toni sucked and tested juice from the plantain flower and she liked it. I think she could become a nice plantain juice hunter-
I have got a lot of beekeeping stories to share but I need a lot of time to meditate.

Let me know when you need them--- keep buzzing--- friends.