Mahua

Value to bees

Nectar

Very high

Pollen

Moderate

As a honey crop

Major honey crop — yields a surplus in good years

Which bees, and why

Much mahua honey comes from wild Apis dorsata combs harvested from forest trees rather than from hives, which ties it directly to forest access and to the rights of the communities who collect it. Bats and birds also feed heavily on the flowers.

Worth knowing

An excellent spring nectar source at the hottest and driest point of the central Indian year.

Flowering

In flower

March to April (northern hemisphere)

A short intense spring flow as the tree flowers before the leaves.

When nectar flows

Heavy. The fleshy corollas are sugar-rich enough that they are themselves fermented into liquor.

Year-to-year variation

Substantial in a good flowering year, and largely wild-harvested from Apis dorsata combs rather than from hives.

What it does to the honey

Contributes a heavy molasses and fermented dried-fruit character with a faintly smoky finish.

Growing it

Conditions

Full sun on dry forest soil with a pronounced dry season. Drought-tolerant and long-lived.

Size

16-20 m tall with a broad crown.

Native range

Central and northern India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, in dry deciduous forest.

Suits

Large gardens

• Not a temperate garden tree.
• The flower harvest is a major seasonal activity across central India, with families gathering the fallen corollas at dawn.
• Colonial-era restrictions on mahua distillation were a significant grievance, and the tree's place in Adivasi life is difficult to overstate.

What it looks like

A large deciduous tree with thick leathery leaves clustered at the branch tips and dense clusters of fleshy cream corollas that fall whole to the ground, where they are collected and dried.