November
Plants in flower in November. 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.
52 records · flowering month
- IvyHedera helixOne of the very few plants that is top-rated for both nectar and pollen, and it delivers them when the year's other options have finished. For overwintering insects this is decisive.
- 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.
- Strawberry treeArbutus unedoValuable out of all proportion to its abundance, because of when it flowers. Late nectar lets colonies enter winter with fresh stores in a landscape that has otherwise shut down.
- SidrZiziphus spina-christiIn much of its range sidr is not merely a good forage plant but effectively the only one at that time of year, which makes it structurally critical rather than simply valuable.
- VerbenaVerbena bonariensisGood ratings sustained over an exceptionally long season, and delivered late — verbena is often the last substantial nectar in a garden before ivy.
- CalendulaCalendula officinalisModerate nectar and good pollen, delivered across an exceptionally long season including the shoulders of the year when little else is open. Its value is timing rather than volume.
- CarobCeratonia siliquaStructurally important rather than abundant — a good nectar source at a time of year when a Mediterranean colony has almost no alternatives.
- QuillayQuillaja saponariaA good summer nectar source in dry country, and one of relatively few substantial ones in central Chile.
- 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.
- Winter viburnumViburnum × bodnantenseModerate nectar and little pollen, delivered across the longest winter flowering window of any common garden shrub.
- DahliaDahliaGood for both in single-flowered forms across a very long late window, and close to zero in the doubles. The ratings here describe the single forms only.
- WallflowerErysimumGood nectar across an exceptionally long season, from a small drought-proof plant. Very few things offer eight months of forage from one position.
- KanukaKunzea ericoidesAn excellent nectar and pollen source across the New Zealand summer.
- RewarewaKnightia excelsaA heavy nectar source in native forest, and an important one for the New Zealand forest bird community as well as for bees.
- 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.
- Scots pinePinus sylvestrisNo floral nectar, moderate wind-borne pollen that bees will collect, and honeydew in very large quantities where the scale insect is established.
- Brazilian pepperSchinus terebinthifoliaA good autumn nectar source at a point in the Florida year when colonies would otherwise be consuming stores.
- 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.
- TeaCamellia sinensisA good late nectar and pollen source, arriving when the season is otherwise closing.
- BaobabAdansonia digitataA good nectar and pollen source for the brief period the flowers are open.
- MopaneColophospermum mopaneModest floral nectar and a substantial honeydew resource, which is the reason the woodland supports beekeeping at all.
- CashewAnacardium occidentaleA 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.
- Lesser calamintClinopodium nepetaAn outstanding nectar source with one of the longest useful seasons of any garden perennial.
- AbeliaLinnaea x grandifloraA good nectar source over one of the longest seasons of any garden shrub.
- Fodder radishRaphanus sativusA generous late nectar and pollen source in arable country where autumn forage is otherwise nearly absent.
- FatsiaFatsia japonicaA generous late-autumn nectar and pollen source, and among the very last available anywhere.
- ElaeagnusElaeagnus x submacrophyllaA generous late-autumn nectar source, and valuable disproportionately for its timing.
- Greek heathErica manipulifloraThe most important autumn forage across much of the Aegean, and the reason colonies there can be wintered without heavy feeding.
- 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.
- MoringaMoringa oleiferaA dependable year-round trickle rather than a flow, which in a dryland landscape is worth more than its volume suggests.
- BabulVachellia niloticaOne of the major honey crops of northwestern India and Pakistan, and a substantial source across the Sahel.
- Oil-tea camelliaCamellia oleiferaEnormous in volume and awkward in practice: the nectar contains oligosaccharides that honey bees digest poorly, and colonies working it heavily can suffer brood problems and adult mortality.
- 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.
- Niger seedGuizotia abyssinicaA principal Ethiopian honey source and the reason the country's autumn crop is as large as it is, alongside the white honeys of the highland forests.
- 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.
- BushwillowCombretum speciesA major and under-documented African honey source, second only to the acacias across much of the savannah belt.
- Spanish needleBidens albaAmong the most important sources in Florida beekeeping, and the one that carries colonies between the citrus, palmetto and gallberry flows.
- 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.
- AngicoAnadenanthera colubrinaA principal source of the caatinga honey that northeastern Brazil exports in quantity, much of it organic-certified.
- MandacaruCereus jamacaruA minor nectar source and a substantial early-morning pollen one, valuable in a landscape where the dry season leaves very little.
- ChañarGeoffroea decorticansA short, heavy and locally important spring flow across the Argentine dry interior.
- PaperbarkMelaleuca speciesA reliable coastal and wetland flow across eastern Australia, and valuable partly because it occupies ground the drier eucalypts do not.
- TowaiWeinmannia silvicolaThe first native forest crop of the northern New Zealand season, and one that is increasingly marketed on its own terms rather than blended.
Other flowering month groups
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