Red clover vs white clover
Two clovers in the same field, and the clearest demonstration anywhere of why tongue length decides which bees a flower can feed. One produces a famous honey and the other produces none.
Which to choose
Both, for different reasons. Sow white clover in a lawn or ley if the goal is general forage and honey; sow red clover specifically for long-tongued bumblebees, which are the group in most trouble and which have the fewest substitutes. In a meadow mix, red clover, bird's-foot trefoil and vetches together do more for declining species than any amount of white clover.
Why these get compared
Because they look like the same plant doing the same job and they are not, and the difference between them explains more about bee ecology than almost any other pair in the catalogue.
Where they differ
| Axis | Red clover | White clover | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Corolla depth | About 9 to 10 mm | Shallow, and easily reached | The entire story. A honey bee's tongue is roughly 6 mm, so red clover's nectar is beyond her by several millimetres. She is not choosing to ignore it; she physically cannot reach it. |
| Which bees can use it | Long-tongued bumblebees — the garden bumblebee, the common carder, historically the great yellow | Essentially everything, honey bees included | This is why almost all commercial clover honey is white clover. Red clover's nectar goes to bumblebees, and where those bumblebees have gone, it goes nowhere. |
| Honey produced | Effectively none from honey bees | One of the largest honey crops in the world | Clover honey is the taste of honey for most of the English-speaking world, and it comes entirely from the shallow-flowered species. The deep one, growing in the same field, contributes nothing to it. |
| Conservation significance | Its decline as a farm crop is directly implicated in the decline of Britain's long-tongued bumblebees | Abundant, and not a conservation concern | Nitrogen fertiliser replaced red clover in the rotation, and the bumblebees that depended on it declined with it. The great yellow bumblebee's retreat to the Hebrides is the clearest case. |
| What a grower can do | Delay one cut past flowering, and include it in leys and margins | Leave the lawn unmown | Both actions are free. The red clover one matters more, because the bees that need it have fewer alternatives than the bees using white clover. |
Where the difference is overstated
That red clover is a poor bee plant. It is an outstanding one — for the right bees. The failure is in the phrase 'good for bees', which flattens a distinction the plants themselves make very sharply.
Sources
- Bumblebees: Behaviour, Ecology, and Conservation — Oxford University Press (2010) · Monograph
- Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland — Bloomsbury (2015) · Field guide
How sources are selected and weighted is set out in the sources and evidence policy.