Avocado

Value to bees

Nectar

High

Pollen

High

As a honey crop

Major honey crop — yields a surplus in good years

Which bees, and why

Managed honey bees do the bulk of commercial pollination, at very high stocking rates precisely because the bees find the nectar unattractive. In its Mesoamerican homeland stingless bees and a range of flies are the traditional pollinators.

Worth knowing

A heavy nectar and pollen source, and one the bees are notably unenthusiastic about relative to what else is on offer.

Flowering

In flower

February to May (northern hemisphere)

Timing varies with climate; California and Mexico bloom in late winter and spring.

When nectar flows

Substantial where groves are extensive, though avocado nectar is unusually high in perseitol, a sugar alcohol that honey bees do not favour. Bees will work other flowers in preference if any are available, which is a real problem for growers.

Year-to-year variation

Yield depends on the absence of competing forage. Growers frequently remove or mow alternative flowers to keep colonies on the crop, and even then bees drift readily to anything else in range.

What it does to the honey

Very dark, almost black, thick and rich with a distinct molasses and dried-fruit character and very little floral quality. It tastes nothing like the fruit, which surprises almost everyone.

Growing it

Conditions

Frost-free, well-drained soil — it is exceptionally intolerant of waterlogging and root rot is the commonest cause of death.

Size

9-20 m tall, and kept far smaller under commercial management.

Native range

South-central Mexico and Central America. Grown commercially in Mexico, Peru, Chile, California, Israel, Spain and Kenya.

Suits

Large gardens, Orchard

• Plant both a type A and a type B cultivar; a single tree sets poorly because of the staggered flowering.
• Drainage matters more than fertility. Never plant in a hollow or on heavy wet ground.
• Seed-grown trees take a decade or more to fruit and rarely come true; grafted trees are the sensible choice.

What it looks like

A large evergreen tree with leathery dark leaves and enormous panicles of small greenish-yellow flowers — a mature tree may carry over a million of them and set fruit on a tiny fraction.