Chicory

Value to bees

Nectar

High

Pollen

High

As a honey crop

Minor honey crop — a surplus only locally or occasionally

Which bees, and why

Worked hard in the morning and abandoned by afternoon, which makes it a good demonstration that forage availability is a matter of hours as well as of months. Several solitary bees specialise on chicory and its relatives.

Short open florets with accessible nectar and pollen — usable by short-tongued bees and hoverflies alike.

Worth knowing

Good for both during its morning window, and it flowers late in the season when many alternatives have finished.

Flowering

In flower

July to October (northern hemisphere)

A long late-summer window, with individual flowers lasting a single morning and new ones opening daily for months.

When nectar flows

Generous while the flowers are open, which is roughly dawn to early afternoon. Bees learn the schedule quickly and work it early.

Year-to-year variation

Dependable on poor dry ground, and a minor honey source where it is grown at field scale for root or forage.

Growing it

Conditions

Full sun, poor dry soil, and a deep taproot that finds water where shallower plants cannot.

Size

60-120 cm.

Native range

Europe, North Africa and western Asia, naturalised worldwide.

Suits

Meadow or wildflower area, Large gardens, Farm scale

• Excellent in a meadow mix or a herbal ley, where its deep taproot also lifts minerals and improves drought resilience.
• The same species as the salad chicories and witloof; letting those bolt gives the same flowers.
• Cut back hard in midsummer for a fresh flush of flowers into October.

What it looks like

A stiff branching perennial with sparse toothed leaves and stalkless clear sky-blue daisy flowers set close against the stems, opening in the morning and closing by afternoon.