Farm scale
Field crops, green manures and margins, where the landscape-level forage actually is.
57 records · garden context
- LavenderLavandula angustifoliaAn unusually good nectar plant relative to its pollen offering. Bees visiting lavender are mostly there for nectar, which is why it supports adult foragers well and contributes less to brood rearing.
- White cloverTrifolium repensOne of the very few plants that is both a top-tier nectar source and a substantial pollen source, over a long season, at landscape scale.
- SunflowerHelianthus annuusAn outstanding late-summer pollen source at a point in the season when pollen is becoming scarce, which matters for colonies raising the bees that will overwinter.
- Wildflower meadowMixed native floraThe highest combined forage value of anything in this catalogue, because of diversity and duration rather than any single plant's output.
- Oilseed rapeBrassica napusTop-rated for both nectar and pollen, and delivered at exactly the moment colonies are expanding fastest in spring. Its faults are entirely about what comes after.
- BuckwheatFagopyrum esculentumGenuinely useful as a late-summer gap filler, and its speed from sowing to flower makes it one of the few forage plants that can be deployed tactically within a single season.
- AlfalfaMedicago sativaExcellent forage on paper, and the tripping mechanism complicates it in practice: a honey bee robbing nectar from the side of the flower collects no pollen and delivers none.
- BorageBorago officinalisOne of the few plants that genuinely deserves the top rating for nectar, and it earns it through replenishment rate rather than through abundance of flowers.
- PhaceliaPhacelia tanacetifoliaOne of very few plants rated top for both nectar and pollen, delivered late in the season when both are scarce. That combination is why it appears in nearly every agri-environment seed mix in Europe.
- RaspberryRubus idaeusOne of the highest-yielding nectar plants in temperate horticulture, and good for pollen too. Very few plants combine this productivity with this reliability.
- Red cloverTrifolium pratenseTop-rated nectar that most of the bees people plant for cannot reach. This record exists largely to make that distinction concrete.
- CornflowerCentaurea cyanusGood nectar over a long season from a cheap annual, and one of very few garden plants where a reader can actually see extrafloral nectaries at work.
- Common poppyPapaver rhoeasThe clearest case on the site for rating nectar and pollen separately. A single 'bee friendly' score would either overstate the poppy or understate it, and both would be wrong.
- Sweet cloverMelilotus officinalisVery high nectar over a long dry-season window, and shallow enough florets that honey bees can work it properly — which alfalfa, growing in the same fields, will not allow.
- Chinese milk vetchAstragalus sinicusVery high nectar delivered at vast scale in early spring, and the anchor of migratory beekeeping across southern China.
- ChicoryCichorium intybusGood for both during its morning window, and it flowers late in the season when many alternatives have finished.
- Black locustRobinia pseudoacaciaAn exceptional nectar source for a very short period. Pollen is useful but secondary — this is a nectar tree above all.
- SainfoinOnobrychis viciifoliaAn outstanding forage plant on both counts, and one of the few that performs in a dry summer when white clover has stopped.
- MesquiteProsopisA principal desert forage plant, providing both nectar and pollen in landscapes with very few alternatives.
- CottonGossypium hirsutumA prolonged nectar source from two distinct kinds of gland, plus abundant pollen.
- Yellow starthistleCentaurea solstitialisAn outstanding summer nectar source in a season when Californian forage is otherwise very thin.
- Himalayan balsamImpatiens glanduliferaOutstanding on both counts, at a time of year when little else offers anything. This is the whole difficulty.
- Japanese knotweedReynoutria japonicaAn excellent late nectar source, and moderate for pollen.
- Field beanVicia fabaGood on both counts, and unusual in offering nectar from two different structures.
- Squash and pumpkinCucurbita pepoA generous nectar and pollen source in the early morning, and unavailable for the rest of the day.
- Brazilian pepperSchinus terebinthifoliaA good autumn nectar source at a point in the Florida year when colonies would otherwise be consuming stores.
- Chinese tallowTriadica sebiferaAn excellent nectar and pollen source, and the mainstay of Gulf coast beekeeping.
- MarmeleiroCrotonA good nectar and pollen source in a semi-arid landscape with limited alternatives.
- KaranjPongamia pinnataA good nectar and pollen source at the thinnest point of the Indian year.
- SesameSesamum indicumA good nectar and pollen source, and unusual in offering nectar from two different kinds of gland.
- SheaVitellaria paradoxaA good dry-season nectar and pollen source across the West African savannah.
- TamariskTamarixA useful summer nectar source on saline and desert ground where little else flowers, plus a honeydew component.
- Crimson cloverTrifolium incarnatumA good nectar and pollen source, and accessible to honey bees in a way that red clover is not.
- Fodder radishRaphanus sativusA generous late nectar and pollen source in arable country where autumn forage is otherwise nearly absent.
- CorianderCoriandrum sativumA generous and highly accessible nectar and pollen source.
- Sea buckthornHippophae rhamnoidesA genuinely useful early pollen source in a season when protein is scarce, and not a nectar plant at all. Honey sold as sea buckthorn honey is normally a blossom honey from the surrounding flora, or an infusion of berry juice into honey — both legitimate products, neither a monofloral.
- 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.
- BabulVachellia niloticaOne of the major honey crops of northwestern India and Pakistan, and a substantial source across the Sahel.
- Talh acaciaVachellia seyalA major dry-season source across the Sahel and Arabia, and the backbone of migratory beekeeping in Sudan.
- MangiumAcacia mangiumA substantial plantation flow across Southeast Asia, produced by a mechanism most beekeeping literature does not cover — extrafloral nectar, secreted by the leaf rather than the flower.
- TamarindTamarindus indicaA valuable hot-season source across India and the Sahel, and one of the few substantial flows available immediately before the rains.
- 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.
- SoybeanGlycine maxEnormous in area and unreliable in yield. Where it does flow it is a genuine surplus crop; where it does not, an apiary surrounded by soybeans can starve.
- Common milkweedAsclepias syriacaA heavy nectar source and a poor pollen one, because the pollen is not loose — it is bound into paired pollinia that attach mechanically to a visitor.
- Spanish needleBidens albaAmong the most important sources in Florida beekeeping, and the one that carries colonies between the citrus, palmetto and gallberry flows.
- SafflowerCarthamus tinctoriusA modest but well-timed flow that fills a real gap in irrigated arid farming country.
- 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.
- ChañarGeoffroea decorticansA short, heavy and locally important spring flow across the Argentine dry interior.
- StringybarkEucalyptus macrorhyncha and related speciesOne of the mainstays of Australian commercial honey production, valued for both a heavy nectar flow and good pollen.
- Yellow gumEucalyptus leucoxylonAmong the most valuable winter forage trees in southern Australia, and widely planted in shelterbelts and street plantings for that reason.
- Swamp mahoganyEucalyptus robustaA keystone winter nectar source for the whole east coast fauna, and a substantial commercial honey flow alongside that.
- WilgaGeijera parvifloraA dependable inland source when the rains have come, and one of the few trees that gives the western New South Wales apiaries anything at all in winter.
Other garden context groups
Tools that use these records
- Flowering calendar
What should I plant so that something is always in flower for bees?
- Bee-friendly garden planner
What should I plant in the space I actually have?
- Plant recommendation tool
Which plant fills this specific gap?