Loquat

Value to bees

Nectar

High

Pollen

High

As a honey crop

Minor honey crop — a surplus only locally or occasionally

Which bees, and why

The Asian honey bee is better suited to winter flowering than the western honey bee, flying at lower temperatures, and much traditional loquat honey comes from Apis cerana in small fixed apiaries.

Worth knowing

An outstanding winter nectar and pollen source in subtropical climates, and correspondingly valuable.

Flowering

In flower

November to February (northern hemisphere)

A genuine winter flowering, which is what makes the tree exceptional as a bee plant.

When nectar flows

Generous for the season, and it is one of very few plants offering a substantial winter flow anywhere.

Year-to-year variation

Small crops and considerable risk — a cold snap during flowering removes both the honey and the fruit.

What it does to the honey

Contributes a marzipan and dark caramel richness quite unlike anything the pale fruit suggests.

Growing it

Conditions

Full sun in a sheltered position on well-drained soil. The tree is hardy to around -10 °C but the flowers and fruit are damaged well above that, so it fruits only in mild areas.

Size

5-10 m tall, and often kept smaller in gardens.

Native range

Southeastern China. Cultivated for over a thousand years in China and Japan, and widely across the Mediterranean, Turkey and subtropical America.

Suits

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

• It will grow in a cool temperate garden and rarely fruit there, because the winter flowers are frost-tender.
• In mild coastal and urban gardens it is a genuine winter forage plant — worth planting for that alone.
• Grafted trees fruit far sooner than seedlings.

What it looks like

A small evergreen tree with large, stiff, deeply veined leaves felted rusty-brown beneath, and dense woolly panicles of small fragrant cream flowers in winter, followed by orange fruits in spring.