Blueberry

Value to bees

Nectar

High

Pollen

Moderate

As a honey crop

Minor honey crop — a surplus only locally or occasionally

Which bees, and why

The pollen is held in poricidal anthers — tubes with a pore at the tip — and comes out properly only under buzz pollination, where a bee grips the flower and vibrates its flight muscles at high frequency. Bumblebees, mining bees and mason bees do this; honey bees cannot, and collect nectar while shaking loose comparatively little pollen. Growers increasingly buy bumblebee colonies alongside honey bee hives for exactly this reason, and wild bee abundance measurably raises blueberry yields.

Narrow-mouthed pendulous bells favouring bees that can grip and hang. Short-tongued bees including honey bees sometimes rob nectar through holes bitten at the base by bumblebees.

Worth knowing

Useful early forage, and a textbook illustration that abundant flowers do not guarantee an efficient pollination relationship.

Flowering

In flower

April to June (northern hemisphere)

Two to three weeks per site, earlier in the south. It arrives when colonies are still building, so much of what is collected is consumed rather than stored.

When nectar flows

Moderate and cool-weather tolerant. Blueberry flowers open in conditions too cold for honey bees to fly well, which is another reason native bees do a disproportionate share of the actual pollination.

Year-to-year variation

A honey crop only where the acreage is very large. In a cold spring there is no surplus at all and the beekeeper is paid for the pollination service alone.

What it does to the honey

Blueberry nectar gives the honey a tangy, faintly green berry note over a light amber base — one of relatively few honeys that carries an audible trace of the fruit the plant goes on to produce.

Growing it

Conditions

Acid soil — pH 4.5 to 5.5 — moist but well drained, and full sun for fruit. On alkaline soil it must be grown in a container of ericaceous compost, where it does perfectly well.

Size

1-2 m for highbush; 20-40 cm for lowbush, which spreads by rhizome into extensive mats.

Native range

Eastern and northern North America. Lowbush blueberry (V. angustifolium) forms the wild barrens of Maine and the Canadian Maritimes; highbush is the commercially bred garden and orchard species.

Suits

Containers and window boxes, Small gardens, Large gardens, Orchard

• Plant two different cultivars. Blueberries are partly self-fertile and crop far better with cross-pollination, which is the same bee argument at garden scale.
• Water with rainwater rather than tap water in hard-water areas; the calcium in tap water raises the pH of a container over time and the plant sulks.
• Excellent value in a small garden: spring forage, summer fruit and reliable autumn colour from one shrub.

What it looks like

A deciduous shrub with narrow leaves, brilliant scarlet autumn colour, and clusters of small white or pink-flushed urn-shaped flowers hanging downwards, followed by blue-black berries with a waxy bloom.