Karanj

Value to bees

Nectar

High

Pollen

High

As a honey crop

Minor honey crop — a surplus only locally or occasionally

Which bees, and why

Worked heavily by all the Indian hive bees. The pea flowers require a bee with enough weight to trip the keel, which suits carpenter bees and honey bees alike.

A keel flower requiring the visitor to push the petals apart, which excludes small and weak insects.

Worth knowing

A good nectar and pollen source at the thinnest point of the Indian year.

Flowering

In flower

March to May (northern hemisphere)

A pre-monsoon flow in the hottest part of the Indian year, when little else is flowering.

When nectar flows

Generous, and valuable principally for its timing.

Year-to-year variation

Reliable, and the tree is planted extensively enough to be a substantial resource.

What it does to the honey

Contributes a warm herbal character with a faint bitterness over a light caramel base.

Growing it

Conditions

Full sun on almost any soil including saline and poor ground, and highly drought-tolerant once established. It fixes its own nitrogen.

Size

8-20 m tall with a broad spreading crown.

Native range

India, Southeast Asia and northern Australia, on coastal and riverbank ground. Planted very widely across the tropics.

Suits

Large gardens, Farm scale

• Tolerates saline and degraded soil, which is why it is planted for land reclamation.
• Fast-growing and useful as shade and green manure.
• Frost-tender and unsuited to temperate gardens.

What it looks like

A spreading tree with glossy compound leaves and hanging sprays of pale pink to lilac pea flowers, followed by flat woody pods each holding one or two oily seeds.