Blackthorn

Value to bees

Nectar

High

Pollen

High

As a honey crop

Feeds the colony but rarely yields a surplus

Which bees, and why

Worked hard by honey bees, emerging bumblebee queens and a substantial community of early mining bees. Several Andrena species time their emergence to blackthorn and its relatives.

Open five-petalled flowers with fully exposed nectar and pollen — accessible to short-tongued bees, which is what early forage must be.

Worth knowing

Good for both at a moment when almost nothing else of tree scale is open. Its value is the date rather than the quantity.

Flowering

In flower

March to April (northern hemisphere)

Two to three weeks, before the leaves and before hawthorn. Flowering on bare wood makes the display — and the forage — unusually conspicuous.

When nectar flows

Good nectar and pollen, and available on any mild March day. The catch is the weather: blackthorn habitually flowers into a cold spell, and a fortnight of frost during the bloom wastes it entirely.

Year-to-year variation

Forage is reliable in a mild spring and lost in a cold one. Rarely a surplus, because early forage goes into brood rearing.

What it does to the honey

Rarely yields a surplus. Where blackthorn contributes to an early multifloral it adds a light almond-marzipan note, which the Rosaceae family generally does.

Growing it

Conditions

Sun or light shade, almost any soil. Tolerant of wind, salt and coastal exposure.

Size

3-6 m, forming impenetrable thickets.

Native range

Europe, western Asia and northwest Africa.

Suits

Hedgerow, Large gardens, Meadow or wildflower area

• A hedgerow plant rather than a border one — it suckers vigorously and is fiercely thorny.
• Cut on a rotation rather than annually. A hedge trimmed every year flowers very little; one cut every two or three years flowers heavily.
• The sloes make sloe gin, and are only palatable after a frost — or a night in the freezer.

What it looks like

A dense suckering thorny shrub with black bark, opening masses of small white five-petalled flowers on bare wood in early spring, followed by small oval leaves and blue-black sloes.