Harebell
A delicate nodding bellflower of dry grassland, and the plant on which two British bees depend entirely. The harebell carpenter bee and its relatives provision their cells with campanula pollen and nothing else, so a harebell colony is not merely useful forage — it is the whole basis of a small bee's existence.
Value to bees
- Nectar
- Moderate
- Pollen
- High
- As a honey crop
- Not a honey source
- Which bees, and why
- The essential plant for Chelostoma campanularum and C. rapunculi, which provision their cells with campanula pollen exclusively. Males of both routinely sleep inside the closed bells overnight, which is the easiest way to find them.
The bell is open at the mouth and shallow enough for short-tongued bees to enter, and the nodding habit shelters the pollen from rain.
- Worth knowing
- A moderate nectar source and a critical pollen source — critical not in volume but in that specific bees can use nothing else.
Flowering
- In flower
- July to September (northern hemisphere)
Growing it
- Conditions
- Full sun on poor, dry, free-draining soil. It resents rich ground and competition from vigorous grasses.
- Size
- 15-40 cm tall, in loose colonies.
- Native range
- Northern temperate Europe, Asia and North America, on dry grassland, dune, heath and rocky ground.
- Suits
- Small gardens, Meadow or wildflower area, Containers and window boxes
- Sow or plant on poor thin soil — fertility kills it by encouraging grasses.
- It is short-lived individually and persists by self-seeding, so let it set seed.
- Excellent in a gravel garden, on a dry bank or in a green roof.
What it looks like
Slender wiry stems carrying nodding pale blue bells, each about 15 mm long. The round basal leaves that give the species its Latin name have usually withered by flowering, leaving only narrow stem leaves, which confuses a great many people.
Sources
- Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland — Bloomsbury (2015) · Field guide
- HoneyHQ editorial synthesis — HEKNO Ltd · HoneyHQ synthesis
How sources are selected and weighted is set out in the sources and evidence policy.
Guides covering this plant
- Why flowering seasons matterBees and flowers have to be in the same place at the same time. That synchrony is being pulled apart by warming, and for specialist bees with narrow windows it is a serious problem.
- How to make a garden genuinely useful to beesMost bee-friendly advice covers flowers in June, which is the one thing bees are least short of. The gaps are at the ends of the year — and half the problem is not flowers at all.
- The best flowers for beesHerbaceous flowers rather than trees and shrubs, chosen for output and length of season. Most of them are things you can grow in a border or a container.
- Specialist bees and the plants they cannot do withoutA large minority of bee species collect pollen from one plant genus and will starve rather than switch. For them a flowery garden is not forage — it is scenery around the one thing they need.
- Plants for solitary beesNine bee species in ten are solitary. They are small, short-tongued, short-lived and often tied to particular plants — which makes open shallow flowers, a long season and untidy ground more useful to them than a border of showy perennials.
Tools for planning planting
- 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?