Cotton

Value to bees

Nectar

High

Pollen

High

As a honey crop

Major honey crop — yields a surplus in good years

Which bees, and why

Worked heavily by honey bees for both floral and extrafloral nectar. The extrafloral glands also attract ants and parasitic wasps, which is thought to be their function — they buy the plant a standing guard against caterpillars.

Worth knowing

A prolonged nectar source from two distinct kinds of gland, plus abundant pollen.

Flowering

In flower

June to September (northern hemisphere)

Extrafloral nectaries secrete over a longer period than the flowers themselves, extending the useful forage window substantially.

When nectar flows

Steady rather than intense, and unusually prolonged because of the extrafloral nectaries. Where cotton is grown at scale it is a substantial honey source.

Year-to-year variation

Yield is generally good where acreage is large, and the dominant risk is not weather but insecticide. Cotton is among the most heavily sprayed crops in the world, and beekeeping in cotton country depends entirely on the spray regime.

What it does to the honey

Light to medium amber, mild and clean with a slightly buttery quality and no strong floral character. It crystallises readily to a fine smooth set.

Growing it

Conditions

A long hot frost-free growing season and full sun. It is not a garden plant in temperate climates.

Size

1-1.5 m tall as a field crop.

Native range

Mesoamerica originally. Grown across the subtropics — India, China, the United States, Pakistan, Brazil, Egypt and Uzbekistan.

Suits

Farm scale

What it looks like

A branching shrubby annual with lobed leaves and large hibiscus-like flowers that open cream or pale yellow and turn pink then red over two or three days. The familiar boll of white fibre follows.