Coffee

Value to bees

Nectar

High

Pollen

Moderate

As a honey crop

Minor honey crop — a surplus only locally or occasionally

Which bees, and why

Arabica coffee is self-fertile and sets without insects, so the bees are not strictly required. Repeated studies nonetheless find higher fruit set and heavier beans in plantations close to forest with intact wild bee communities, which makes coffee one of the clearest economic arguments for keeping forest next to farmland.

Worth knowing

A heavy but very short-lived nectar source, in flushes rather than as a continuous flow.

Flowering

In flower

March to May (northern hemisphere)

Flowering is triggered by rain rather than by calendar, opening in synchronised flushes a few days after a shower and lasting only two or three days each.

When nectar flows

Intense but brief. Where plantations are extensive and flowering synchronises, colonies can take a surplus within days.

Year-to-year variation

Highly unpredictable, because the trigger is rainfall and the window is a matter of days. Coffee blossom honey is scarce for that reason rather than because the plant is a poor nectar source.

What it does to the honey

Light to medium amber, with a delicate floral sweetness carrying a faint bitter edge. It does not taste of coffee, which disappoints a great many people who buy it expecting that.

Growing it

Conditions

Tropical highland conditions — warm, humid, frost-free, with dappled shade. As a houseplant it needs warmth, humidity and indirect light, and will rarely flower indoors.

Size

2-4 m as managed, and up to 9 m unpruned.

Native range

The highland forests of southwestern Ethiopia and the Boma plateau of South Sudan. Grown across the tropical highlands of Latin America, Africa and Asia.

Suits

Containers and window boxes

• Grown as a houseplant it wants humidity and indirect light, and dislikes cold draughts.
• Shade-grown coffee under forest canopy supports far more biodiversity than full-sun plantation, and yields less per hectare — the trade-off is real and is the crux of the sustainable coffee argument.
• Flowering indoors is uncommon and requires a genuine dry period followed by watering.

What it looks like

An evergreen shrub with glossy dark green leaves in opposite pairs, and clusters of white star-shaped flowers borne along the branches, intensely jasmine-scented. Red cherries follow, each holding two seeds.