English oak

Value to bees

Nectar

None

Pollen

Low

As a honey crop

Minor honey crop — a surplus only locally or occasionally

Which bees, and why

Honey bees collect oak honeydew in good aphid years. The tree's enormous value to invertebrates — several hundred species associated with it in Britain alone — is largely to moths, beetles, gall wasps and their parasitoids rather than to bees, and it is worth being precise about that.

Worth knowing

No floral nectar and little useful pollen — the catkins are wind-pollinated and their pollen is collected only incidentally. The honeydew is the entire beekeeping interest, and stating that plainly is more useful than calling the tree bee-friendly.

Flowering

In flower

April to May (northern hemisphere)

The catkins are wind-pollinated and offer no nectar. The honeydew season, which is what matters to bees, runs from June to September.

When nectar flows

None from the flowers. Oak's value to honey bees is honeydew from aphids and scale insects feeding on leaves and shoots, which in a good year is substantial.

Year-to-year variation

Honeydew from oak is irregular and depends on aphid populations. Oak honeydew honey is produced commercially in parts of southern and central Europe.

What it does to the honey

Very dark, strong and malty with a woody, faintly bitter, distinctly savoury character. Like other honeydews it is high in minerals and low in glucose.

Growing it

Conditions

Deep, heavy, moisture-retentive soil in full sun. Extremely long-lived and slow to mature.

Size

20-40 m tall with a very wide crown, and among the longest-lived European trees.

Native range

Europe, from Ireland to the Caucasus.

Suits

Large gardens, Hedgerow

• A very large and very long-lived tree; plant it where it will have several centuries of room.
• Supports an exceptional invertebrate community, most of which are not bees.
• Acute oak decline and oak processionary moth are the principal current threats in Britain.

What it looks like

A large spreading tree with deeply lobed leaves on very short stalks, and acorns on long stalks — the reverse of sessile oak, which is the reliable way to tell them apart. Flowers are inconspicuous yellow-green catkins.