Ivy family plants for bees
A small family whose entire value rests on one thing: its members flower when almost nothing else does, at both ends of the world.
Why this family matters
Araliaceae flowers are tiny, greenish and carried in rounded umbel-like heads with completely exposed nectaries — an architecture that excludes nothing. What makes the family matter is timing. Ivy flowers from September to November in the northern hemisphere and is the single most important autumn forage plant in Britain and northern Europe; five finger flowers through the New Zealand winter and does the same job there. Both feed colonies at the point where the year's survival is being decided rather than at its peak.
When it flowers
Deliberately awkward: ivy from September to November, fatsia from October into November, five finger from May to August in the southern hemisphere. Every member of this family in the catalogue flowers in the cold half of its own year.
Which bees it serves
Ivy supports a bee that eats essentially nothing else — the ivy mining bee, Colletes hederae, which emerges in September specifically to work it and has expanded its range across northwestern Europe within living memory. Honey bees, wasps, hoverflies and late butterflies all work the same flowers.
Worth knowing before you plant it
Ivy only flowers once it reaches its adult growth phase, which means it has to be allowed to reach the top of a wall and then left alone. A hard-clipped ivy hedge produces no flowers at all, which quietly removes the most valuable autumn forage a garden can hold.
Ivy family plants in the catalogue
What this group covers
7 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 | nothing | No | No |
| April | nothing | No | No |
| May | 1 | Yes | Yes |
| June | 1 | Yes | Yes |
| July | 1 | Yes | Yes |
| August | 1 | Yes | Yes |
| September | 1 | 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, March, April, 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: Ivy. 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
- Ivy honeyStrong, faintly bitter and distinctly herbal — closer to a dark honey in character than its pale colour suggests.
- Wildflower honeyVaries with the season and the landscape. Pale spring crops are floral and light; late-summer crops darker, fruitier and stronger.
- Urban honeyVaries enormously and is frequently more complex than a rural multifloral, because the flowering succession is longer and the species mix wider.
- Five finger honeyMild, faintly green and slightly waxy, setting hard and pale. A working honey rather than a prestige one.
Other families
- Daisy family
- Mint family
- Rose family
- Pea family
- Honeysuckle family
- Heather family
- Buttercup family
- Myrtle family
- Cabbage 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
- 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?