Spurge family plants for bees
Odd flowers, heavy nectar, and a family that includes both a major American honey crop and several plants that will burn your skin.
Why this family matters
Euphorbiaceae flowers are strange: what looks like a flower is usually a cyathium, a cup of reduced flowers with nectar glands around the rim, entirely exposed. That exposure makes the nectar accessible to almost any insect, and the family secretes it generously. Chinese tallow is the significant honey plant — a major crop across the southern United States — and marmeleiro yields commercially in Brazil. Resin spurge is a Canary Islands endemic producing a highly regarded local honey.
When it flowers
Chinese tallow April to June, resin spurge March to May, marmeleiro June to September. The temperate garden spurges flower in spring and are worth having for early accessible nectar.
Which bees it serves
Exposed nectaries mean this family is worked by short-tongued bees, wasps, flies and ants as much as by honey bees. Where honey bees work it in quantity — Chinese tallow above all — the yields are substantial.
Worth knowing before you plant it
Euphorbia sap is a milky latex that causes skin burns and serious eye injury, and this is not a minor caution. Chinese tallow is also invasive across the southern United States, where it is a listed noxious weed in several states despite its value to beekeepers.
Spurge 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 | 1 | Yes | Yes |
| April | 2 | Yes | Yes |
| May | 2 | Yes | Yes |
| June | 2 | Yes | Yes |
| July | 1 | Yes | Yes |
| August | 1 | Yes | Yes |
| September | 1 | Yes | Yes |
| October | nothing | No | No |
| November | nothing | No | No |
| December | nothing | No | No |
What this group does not cover
Nothing in flower: January, February, October, November, 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: Chinese tallow. 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
- Chinese tallow honeyMild and clean with a light floral sweetness and a faint waxy note — an unremarkable flavour attached to a very remarkable ecological situation.
- Marmeleiro honeyLight and clean with a soft floral sweetness and a faint resinous edge from the scrub — approachable and characteristic of caatinga honey generally.
- Euphorbia honeyOverwhelmingly pungent — a sharp peppery burn at the back of the throat that builds for some seconds after swallowing and dominates everything else. Beneath it there is a warm caramel sweetness that most people never get to.
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
- Ivy family
- Oak and chestnut family
- Leatherwood 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?