Coriander
A culinary annual grown at field scale for seed across India and eastern Europe, producing a honey that smells unmistakably of the spice. Its flat umbels are among the most accessible flowers there are, and letting a row bolt is one of the easiest things a vegetable gardener can do for small solitary bees.
Value to bees
- Nectar
- High
- Pollen
- High
- As a honey crop
- Minor honey crop — a surplus only locally or occasionally
- Which bees, and why
- Flat umbels of tiny open flowers are the most accessible architecture there is, which makes coriander disproportionately valuable to the small short-tongued bees that deep flowers exclude entirely. It also feeds hoverflies and parasitic wasps.
Flat umbels of tiny completely open flowers — the most accessible arrangement in the plant kingdom.
- Worth knowing
- A generous and highly accessible nectar and pollen source.
Flowering
- In flower
- June to August (northern hemisphere)
Bolts and flowers readily in warm weather, which is a nuisance for leaf growers and a gift for bees.
What it does to the honey
Contributes an unmistakable warm coriander-seed aroma over a caramel base — one of the most immediately recognisable honeys there is.
Growing it
- Conditions
- Full sun on free-draining soil. It bolts readily in heat, which is exactly what makes it useful here.
- Size
- 40-60 cm tall in flower.
- Native range
- The eastern Mediterranean and southwest Asia. Cultivated worldwide for at least four thousand years.
- Suits
- Small gardens, Containers and window boxes, Large gardens, Farm scale
- Let a row bolt and flower rather than pulling it — it is one of the cheapest and easiest things to do for small solitary bees.
- Sow successionally for leaves and let the last sowing run to flower and seed.
- Sow direct; it has a taproot and transplants badly.
What it looks like
A slender annual with lower leaves like flat-leaved parsley and finely divided upper ones, carrying flat umbels of small white to pale pink flowers, the outer petals enlarged.
Sources
- Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland — Bloomsbury (2015) · Field guide
- Assessment Report on Pollinators, Pollination and Food Production — Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) (2016) · Systematic review Link
How sources are selected and weighted is set out in the sources and evidence policy.
Guides covering this plant
- Plants that attract honey bees specificallyHoney bees have short tongues and work in large numbers, which means they want different plants from bumblebees. Half the flowers sold as bee-friendly are out of their reach entirely.
- The best honey for savoury cookingIn savoury cooking honey is doing three jobs at once — sweetening, browning and balancing acid — and the honeys that do them best are the ones nobody wants on toast.
- The vegetable garden as bee habitatThe one part of a garden where the relationship runs both ways: bees decide the size of the crop, and the crop — plus what is allowed to bolt beside it — feeds the bees.
Tools for planning planting
- 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?