Goji

Value to bees

Nectar

High

Pollen

Moderate

As a honey crop

Minor honey crop — a surplus only locally or occasionally

Which bees, and why

Insect pollination improves goji fruit set measurably. As a nightshade it also benefits from buzz pollination, which bumblebees and blue-banded bees perform and honey bees cannot.

Worth knowing

A useful nectar source over an unusually long season.

Flowering

In flower

June to September (northern hemisphere)

Flowers in successive flushes through the summer, which is unusually long for a fruiting crop.

When nectar flows

Steady rather than intense, and prolonged by the repeated flushes.

Year-to-year variation

Dependable where plantations are extensive, and a mid-season stop for Chinese migratory beekeeping.

What it does to the honey

Contributes a light soft red-fruit note with a faint herbal edge.

Growing it

Conditions

Full sun on free-draining, even poor and alkaline soil, and very drought-tolerant once established. It dislikes waterlogging.

Size

1-3 m tall, arching and often trained.

Native range

Northwestern China and adjacent Central Asia. Grown commercially in Ningxia, Gansu and Xinjiang, and as a garden and hedging plant across Europe and North America.

Suits

Large gardens, Hedgerow, Containers and window boxes

• Suckers freely and can become a nuisance; a container or a root barrier keeps it in check.
• Fruits on new wood, so prune in late winter to encourage it.
• Tolerates salt and poor soil, which suits it to coastal and difficult sites.

What it looks like

An arching thorny shrub with narrow grey-green leaves and small purple funnel-shaped flowers borne along the stems, followed by the familiar bright red-orange berries.