Greek heath

Value to bees

Nectar

High

Pollen

Moderate

As a honey crop

Minor honey crop — a surplus only locally or occasionally

Which bees, and why

The small bell flowers suit short-tongued bees, and honey bees work it in very large numbers because there is nothing else open. Colonies are routinely moved to the coastal scrub for it.

Worth knowing

The most important autumn forage across much of the Aegean, and the reason colonies there can be wintered without heavy feeding.

Flowering

In flower

September to December (northern hemisphere)

The latest substantial flow in the Greek beekeeping year, and the one that lets colonies build winter stores after the summer drought.

When nectar flows

Steady rather than spectacular, and its value comes from timing more than volume. Nectar flows best after the first autumn rains.

Year-to-year variation

Depends almost entirely on the autumn rains arriving. A dry October removes the flow and the winter stores with it.

What it does to the honey

Contributes a dark amber colour, a caramel and dried-fig sweetness, and a persistent faintly bitter finish that separates it from the pale summer honeys of the same region.

Growing it

Conditions

Full sun on sharply drained alkaline soil — unusual among heaths, most of which demand acidity. That tolerance is what lets it grow on Aegean limestone.

Size

0.5-1.5 m.

Native range

The eastern Mediterranean — Greece, the Aegean islands, western Turkey, Albania and the Adriatic coast — on dry limestone scrub and open pine understorey.

Suits

Containers and window boxes, Small gardens, Meadow or wildflower area

• One of the few Erica species that will grow on chalk, which makes it useful where Calluna will not establish.
• Trim lightly after flowering only. Cutting into old wood generally kills a stem.

What it looks like

A low, wiry, grey-green subshrub with fine needle-like leaves and dense spikes of small pink bell flowers held along the upper stems.