Cabbage family plants for bees
Oilseed rape at farm scale and a handful of genuinely good garden plants. The family that made setting honey the norm across northern Europe.
Why this family matters
Brassicaceae flowers are four-petalled crosses with nectar at the base of short stamens — shallow, accessible and produced in vast numbers on a flowering spike. Oilseed rape is the family's landscape-scale member and has changed European honey more than any other single crop: it yields enormously, it is glucose-dominant, and it granulates within weeks, which is why so much northern European honey is sold set. The garden members are more modest and considerably better behaved.
When it flowers
Aubrieta and wallflower from March, honesty and rape in April and May, sweet rocket into July, and fodder radish sown late will flower from August to November — which makes it one of the few genuinely useful autumn green manures for bees.
Which bees it serves
Shallow nectar suits short-tongued bees, and rape in flower is worked by honey bees in enormous numbers. Several solitary mining bees emerge to coincide with it. The family is also the host group for orange-tip and other whites, so it earns its garden place beyond bees.
Worth knowing before you plant it
Rape honey sets hard and fast, sometimes in the comb, and needs extracting promptly. For a gardener the relevant version of that fact is simpler: honey from a rape-heavy landscape will be solid in the jar within weeks, and that is the sugar chemistry rather than a fault.
Cabbage family plants in the catalogue
- Oilseed rapeBrassica napusApril to June. Nectar very high, pollen very high.Major honey crop
- WallflowerErysimumMarch to November. Nectar high, pollen moderate.Feeds the colony but rarely yields a surplus
- HonestyLunaria annuaApril to June. Nectar high, pollen moderate.Not a honey source
- Sweet rocketHesperis matronalisMay to July. Nectar high, pollen moderate.Not a honey source
- AubrietaAubrieta deltoideaMarch to May. Nectar high, pollen high.Not a honey source
- Fodder radishRaphanus sativusAugust to November. Nectar high, pollen high.Minor honey crop
What this group covers
9 of 12 months have something in flower. Nectar and pollen are counted separately and a month counts only where at least one plant offers that resource at moderate value or better — a plant in flower is not the same as a plant worth visiting.
| Month | In flower | Nectar | Pollen |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | nothing | No | No |
| February | nothing | No | No |
| March | 2 | Yes | Yes |
| April | 4 | Yes | Yes |
| May | 5 | Yes | Yes |
| June | 4 | Yes | Yes |
| July | 2 | Yes | Yes |
| August | 2 | Yes | Yes |
| September | 2 | Yes | Yes |
| October | 2 | Yes | Yes |
| November | 2 | Yes | Yes |
| December | nothing | No | No |
What this group does not cover
Nothing in flower: January, February, December. Planting only from this group would leave those months empty.
Check these against your region before planting
1 plant in this group carry an invasiveness or legal restriction note somewhere in the world: Sweet rocket. HoneyHQ does not know where you are and will not guess, so it flags rather than filters.
Bees these plants are recorded with
Taken from the relationships on each plant record. These are the well-attested associations rather than an exhaustive list of visitors, so treat the number as a floor.
Honeys from these plants
- Rapeseed honeyVery sweet, very mild, faintly cabbage-like when fresh and cleanly bland once set. Texture is what it has instead of flavour.
- Himalayan forest honeyComplex and warm, with a herbal and faintly smoky character reflecting both the flora and the traditional processing — spring honey is lighter and more floral, autumn honey darker and more resinous.
Other families
- Daisy family
- Mint family
- Rose family
- Pea family
- Honeysuckle family
- Heather family
- Buttercup family
- Myrtle family
- Borage family
- Carrot family
- Mallow family
- Onion family
- Buckthorn family
- Maple and horse chestnut family
- Sapodilla family
- Plantain family
- Citrus family
- Protea family
- Primrose family
- Asparagus family
- Currant family
- Elder and viburnum family
- Pine family
- Cashew and mango family
- Palm family
- Ivy family
- Oak and chestnut family
- Leatherwood family
- Spurge family
Plan with these
- 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?