Elder

Value to bees

Nectar

Low

Pollen

High

As a honey crop

Not a honey source

Which bees, and why

Worked for pollen by honey bees and small solitary bees, and visited heavily by hoverflies and beetles. Elder also hosts enormous aphid populations, and the honeydew they produce is collected by bees — which is a second and quite separate contribution.

Tiny fully open flowers on a flat platform, accessible to every insect. There is simply very little nectar in them.

Worth knowing

A good pollen source with almost nothing to offer in nectar, and the clearest hedgerow example of why the two are rated separately.

Flowering

In flower

May to July (northern hemisphere)

Four to six weeks in early summer, at the point when spring blossom has finished.

When nectar flows

Very little nectar. Elder is pollinated substantially by flies and small beetles attracted by the scent, and its offer to insects is pollen rather than sugar.

Year-to-year variation

Pollen is reliable every year. It is not a nectar crop and never will be.

Growing it

Conditions

Sun or part shade, any soil, and it thrives on nitrogen-rich disturbed ground. Effectively unkillable.

Size

3-8 m.

Native range

Europe, North Africa and western Asia.

Suits

Hedgerow, Large gardens, Small gardens

• Cut hard in winter to keep it in bounds; it regenerates from almost nothing.
• The hollow pithy stems, cut and left standing, are excellent nesting habitat for small carpenter bees and other stem-nesting species.
• Ornamental dark-leaved cultivars flower well and are considerably better behaved than the species in a small garden.

What it looks like

A fast-growing shrub with corky bark and pinnate leaves, carrying large flat-topped creamy-white flower heads with a heavy sweet scent, followed by drooping bunches of black berries.