Spring plants for bees

Why pollen matters more than nectar now

Nectar is fuel and pollen is protein. In spring the binding constraint is pollen, because that is what larvae are made of. A honey bee colony begins rearing brood in late winter using stored pollen, and a bumblebee queen provisions her first brood cells with pollen within days of emerging.

This is why willow, which offers modest nectar and enormous quantities of pollen, is one of the most important spring plants in the northern hemisphere — and why a garden with early nectar but no early pollen is only half useful.

The spring plants that matter

Willow, and the male plant problem

Willows are dioecious: male and female plants are separate. Male catkins carry the yellow pollen; female catkins produce nectar and no pollen at all. If you are planting willow for bees, plant male clones, and be aware that most ornamental willows sold are selected for appearance rather than sex.

What to do rather than plant

• Raise the mower and do not cut dandelions in April.
• Leave lesser celandine and coltsfoot on damp ground rather than weeding them out.
• Do not tidy last year's stems until late spring — solitary bees are still emerging from them.
• Let a corner of grass grow, and mow paths through it rather than the whole thing.
• Delay the first cut of any wildflower area until the spring flowers have set seed.

Fruit blossom, which is a two-way relationship

Spring is also when the pollination relationship runs both ways most visibly. Apple, pear, plum, cherry and blackcurrant all depend on insect visits for a crop, and all flower when the weather is frequently too cold for honey bees to fly. Mason bees and bumblebees do a disproportionate share of that work.

Providing mason bee tubes near fruit trees is one of the few garden interventions with a directly measurable return, and it costs almost nothing.