Mahonia

Value to bees

Nectar

High

Pollen

High

As a honey crop

Feeds the colony but rarely yields a surplus

Which bees, and why

Worked by honey bees on any winter day warm enough to fly, and by buff-tailed bumblebee queens, which in mild urban areas now emerge or remain active through the winter and depend on exactly this kind of plant.

Small open flowers with accessible nectar — usable by short-tongued bees, which is what a winter plant needs to be.

Worth knowing

Rated high rather than very high on volume, and it is arguably the most valuable plant in this catalogue anyway. A high-value plant in July competes with everything; a moderate one in January competes with nothing.

Flowering

In flower

November to February (northern hemisphere)

Different cultivars peak at different points across that window, so planting two extends winter cover further than planting one twice.

When nectar flows

Produces nectar in genuinely cold weather, which very few plants do. What matters is not the volume — it is that anything is available at all in January.

Year-to-year variation

Reliable in flowering, but whether bees can reach it depends on the weather. Nectar sitting unvisited through a fortnight of frost is still worth having for the mild day that follows.

What it does to the honey

None. Winter forage is consumed immediately rather than stored, so mahonia contributes to colony survival rather than to any honey.

Growing it

Conditions

Sun or shade — it will flower in a north-facing border where little else does — and most soils, including dry ones once established.

Size

2-4 m, spreading to 3 m.

Native range

The garden hybrids are crosses between Chinese and Japanese species; related Mahonia species are native to western North America and eastern Asia.

Suits

Small gardens, Large gardens, Hedgerow

Maintenance, and the bit that matters

Pruning in autumn removes the entire year's flowering, which is the whole point of the plant. Prune in late winter or early spring, after it has finished.

• One of very few genuinely useful bee plants for deep shade, which makes it a solution to a difficult corner rather than a compromise.
• Prune immediately after flowering, cutting the flowered stems back hard to prevent it becoming leggy and bare at the base.
• Leave the berries: blackbirds and thrushes take them in late spring when little else is available.

What it looks like

A large evergreen shrub with spiny, glossy, pinnate leaves and upright or arching racemes of small bright yellow flowers, strongly scented of lily-of-the-valley, followed by blue-black berries.