Cherry

Value to bees

Nectar

High

Pollen

High

As a honey crop

Minor honey crop — a surplus only locally or occasionally

Which bees, and why

Heavily worked in the brief window it offers. Extrafloral nectaries at the leaf base continue to attract insects after flowering has finished, which is an unusual bonus.

Worth knowing

Important early forage arriving when colonies are expanding and bumblebee queens are founding nests. Almost all of it is consumed rather than stored.

Flowering

In flower

March to May (northern hemisphere)

Earlier than apple by two to four weeks, which is precisely what makes it valuable.

When nectar flows

A generous flow in warm weather, but the timing is risky — early blossom is regularly caught by frost.

What it does to the honey

Contributes a light, delicate, faintly almond-like note to early spring wildflower honey. Rarely monofloral.

Growing it

Conditions

Full sun to light shade, most well-drained soils, tolerant of chalk.

Size

8-25 m for wild cherry; ornamental cultivars from 3 m.

Native range

Europe, western Asia and North Africa.

Suits

Small gardens, Large gardens, Orchard, Hedgerow

• Choose single-flowered forms. This is the important point: double-flowered ornamental cherries have had their reproductive parts bred into extra petals and offer very little nectar and often no accessible pollen at all.
• Wild cherry suckers freely and can be a nuisance in a small garden — consider a grafted ornamental form instead.
• Prune in summer, never in winter, to reduce the risk of silver leaf and bacterial canker.

What it looks like

A deciduous tree with distinctive glossy banded reddish bark and clusters of white five-petalled flowers on long stalks, opening with or just before the leaves.