Hellebore

Value to bees

Nectar

Moderate

Pollen

High

As a honey crop

Not a honey source

Which bees, and why

Worked by honey bees on mild winter days and by early bumblebee queens, which are large enough to push into a nodding flower easily. A hellebore clump on a sunny February afternoon is often the only thing in a garden with insects on it.

The nectaries are tucked at the base of a nodding flower, which suits a bee that can grip and climb in. Bumblebees manage best; honey bees work them competently.

Worth knowing

Moderate nectar and good pollen at the point in the year when both are hardest to find. Rated by timing rather than by quantity.

Flowering

In flower

December to April (northern hemisphere)

Helleborus niger opens around midwinter and H. × hybridus from late January into April, so a mixed planting covers the whole of the hungry gap.

When nectar flows

Nectaries are modified petals forming small green cups at the flower's base, and they secrete over a long period. The nodding habit shelters the nectar from rain, which is why it survives winter weather when an upward-facing flower's would not.

Year-to-year variation

Reliable every year once established. Never a crop — what matters is that anything at all is open in February.

Growing it

Conditions

Part shade, moist humus-rich soil that does not dry out. Happiest under deciduous trees and shrubs.

Size

30-60 cm.

Native range

Europe and western Asia, particularly the Balkans.

Suits

Small gardens, Large gardens, Containers and window boxes, Orchard

• Cut off the old leaves in late December. It exposes the flowers so insects can find them and removes hellebore leaf-spot at the same time — a rare case where a tidying job genuinely helps.
• Plant single-flowered forms. The heavily bred doubles have converted the nectaries into extra petals and are worthless to bees.
• Long-lived and slow to establish. Plant well and then leave alone.

What it looks like

Clump-forming evergreen perennials with divided leathery leaves and nodding cup-shaped flowers in white, green, pink, plum or near-black, often speckled, with a prominent boss of stamens.