January
Plants in flower in January. A garden's value to bees is limited by its worst month rather than its best, so the list worth reading is the one for a month your own garden has nothing in.
47 records · flowering month
- MahoniaMahonia × mediaRated high rather than very high on volume, and it is arguably the most valuable plant in this catalogue anyway. A high-value plant in July competes with everything; a moderate one in January competes with nothing.
- MānukaLeptospermum scopariumA good nectar source during its brief flowering and of limited use outside it. A landscape of nothing but mānuka is a feast followed by a famine.
- EucalyptusEucalyptusProlific in both nectar and pollen when flowering, though the pollen of some species is nutritionally poor for honey bees, and colonies confined to a single eucalypt species can suffer over time despite abundant forage.
- SnowdropGalanthus nivalisRated low for nectar and it matters anyway, which is the clearest case on the site for why timing belongs alongside quantity. A moderate pollen source in February is worth more to a colony than a high one in July.
- Winter honeysuckleLonicera fragrantissimaModerate ratings that punch far above their weight because of when they arrive. Nothing else that is easy to grow flowers so reliably in December and January.
- CrocusCrocusVery high pollen at a point in the year when pollen is the binding constraint on a colony starting to raise brood. Bees return from crocus carrying enormous bright orange loads, which is one of the most cheerful sights in a February apiary.
- HelleboreHelleborusModerate nectar and good pollen at the point in the year when both are hardest to find. Rated by timing rather than by quantity.
- Winter aconiteEranthis hyemalisGood pollen and useful nectar in the first weeks of the year. Nothing about the quantity is impressive and the date is what counts.
- QuillayQuillaja saponariaA good summer nectar source in dry country, and one of relatively few substantial ones in central Chile.
- HazelCorylus avellanaThe clearest illustration in the catalogue of why nectar and pollen are rated separately: hazel scores zero for one and top marks for the other, and it matters enormously.
- Dead-nettleLamiumGood nectar over an exceptionally long season, including the winter months when almost nothing else is available to a foraging bumblebee.
- GorseUlex europaeusZero nectar and top-rated pollen, available in midwinter. Alongside hazel and poppy it is the clearest argument for rating the two separately.
- Christmas boxSarcococca confusaModerate ratings that count for a great deal because they arrive in January, in dry shade, where the alternatives are nothing.
- Winter viburnumViburnum × bodnantenseModerate nectar and little pollen, delivered across the longest winter flowering window of any common garden shrub.
- Witch hazelHamamelis × intermediaModerate on both counts and valuable entirely because of when it arrives. In its native range it is pollinated partly by winter-active moths.
- KanukaKunzea ericoidesAn excellent nectar and pollen source across the New Zealand summer.
- PohutukawaMetrosideros excelsaA heavy summer nectar and pollen source on coasts with few alternatives.
- JarrahEucalyptus marginataA major nectar and pollen source in years when it flowers heavily.
- LeatherwoodEucryphia lucidaThe principal summer nectar source of the Tasmanian rainforest, and the basis of most of the island's honey production.
- LogwoodHaematoxylum campechianumAn excellent dry-season nectar source across the Caribbean.
- Prickly boxBursaria spinosaAn excellent summer nectar and pollen source, and among the most heavily visited plants in southeastern Australia.
- Southern beechFuscosporaNo floral nectar and negligible pollen. The honeydew is the whole of its value, and it is enormous — which is exactly why nectar and pollen are rated separately in this catalogue.
- BottlebrushMelaleuca citrinaAn excellent nectar and pollen source with pollen presented openly on exposed stamens.
- LoquatEriobotrya japonicaAn outstanding winter nectar and pollen source in subtropical climates, and correspondingly valuable.
- ChiuriDiploknema butyraceaA valuable winter nectar source in the Himalayan mid-hills, where alternatives are scarce.
- SheaVitellaria paradoxaA good dry-season nectar and pollen source across the West African savannah.
- CashewAnacardium occidentaleA good dry-season nectar and pollen source across the tropics.
- MangoMangifera indicaA good dry-season nectar and pollen source across the tropics.
- Winter-flowering cherryPrunus x subhirtellaModest in volume and disproportionately valuable in timing — this is a plant whose worth is entirely about when it flowers.
- Winter clematisClematis cirrhosaModest in volume and valuable specifically for its timing.
- DaphneDaphneA good early nectar source, and valuable disproportionately for its timing.
- Hardy cyclamenCyclamen coumModest in volume and valuable in timing, covering the two thinnest points in the garden year.
- TulsiOcimum tenuiflorumA dependable post-monsoon source in Indian apiaries, and one of the few whose cultivated area is driven by religious and medicinal use rather than by agriculture.
- AjwainTrachyspermum ammiOne of the more useful spice-crop flows in northwestern India, and valuable for its timing as much as its volume.
- MoringaMoringa oleiferaA dependable year-round trickle rather than a flow, which in a dryland landscape is worth more than its volume suggests.
- RambutanNephelium lappaceumA reliable orchard flow, and one where bee pollination measurably lifts fruit set — most rambutan trees carry functionally male and hermaphrodite flowers and need the transfer.
- Coconut palmCocos nuciferaThe most reliable background forage across much of the coastal tropics, precisely because it never stops. Coastal apiaries frequently rest on it between the seasonal flows.
- Sweet thornVachellia karrooA major southern African honey crop and, in many districts, the single most important source there is.
- Oil palmElaeis guineensisA heavy year-round pollen source and a poor nectar one, which makes plantation apiaries protein-rich and carbohydrate-poor — a genuine management problem rather than a technicality.
- Spanish needleBidens albaAmong the most important sources in Florida beekeeping, and the one that carries colonies between the citrus, palmetto and gallberry flows.
- ManzanitaArctostaphylos speciesThe critical winter and early-spring source across Californian chaparral, feeding colonies through the build-up towards almond pollination.
- XtabentúnTurbina corymbosaA short intense morning flow across the Yucatán scrub, worked by both honey bees and the region's managed stingless bees.
- TepezcohuiteMimosa tenuifloraA major dry-season source in Chiapas and in the Brazilian caatinga, and one that increases rather than decreases with land clearance — which is an uncomfortable thing to be able to say about a honey plant.
- MandacaruCereus jamacaruA minor nectar source and a substantial early-morning pollen one, valuable in a landscape where the dry season leaves very little.
- TiacaCaldcluvia paniculataThe second half of the Chilean native-forest season, extending the crop by several weeks after ulmo finishes.
- StringybarkEucalyptus macrorhyncha and related speciesOne of the mainstays of Australian commercial honey production, valued for both a heavy nectar flow and good pollen.
- PaperbarkMelaleuca speciesA reliable coastal and wetland flow across eastern Australia, and valuable partly because it occupies ground the drier eucalypts do not.
Other flowering month groups
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