HoneyHQ

Norway spruce

Picea abiesPinaceaeTree

The dominant conifer of northern and central European forestry, and a major source of honeydew honey. As with silver fir, the honey comes from aphid excretion rather than from flowers, and spruce honeydew produces a dark, resinous honey that is one of the staples of the central European market.

Value to bees

Nectar
None
Pollen
Low
As a honey crop
Major honey crop — yields a surplus in good years
Which bees, and why
Honey bees collect honeydew droplets from needles and twigs. Because honeydew honey is high in minerals and in indigestible sugars, colonies overwintering on it can suffer dysentery — which is why central European beekeepers commonly remove honeydew stores before winter and feed sugar instead.
Worth knowing
No floral nectar. Honeydew is the whole of its value, and it can be very substantial.

Flowering

In flower
June to September (northern hemisphere)

Again not a flowering window but the honeydew season, governed by aphid and scale insect populations.

When nectar flows
No nectar. The flow is honeydew from aphids and scale insects feeding on the tree, and its scale tracks their populations rather than the weather directly.
Year-to-year variation
Unpredictable in the same way as silver fir. Aphid populations depend on winter conditions and on their own predators and parasitoids, so a honeydew forecast is an entomological question rather than a botanical one.

What it does to the honey

Very dark, thick and resinous with a malty, woody, low-sweetness character. High in minerals, and slower to crystallise than most floral honeys.

Growing it

Conditions
Cool moist conditions on acid soil, and shallow-rooted, which makes mature trees vulnerable to windthrow.
Size
30-50 m tall, and the familiar European Christmas tree at a much smaller size.
Native range
Northern and central Europe, from Scandinavia through the Alps and Carpathians, and planted very widely beyond that range.
Suits
Large gardens
  • Shallow-rooted and prone to blowing over in exposed positions.
  • Planted extensively in monoculture across Europe, where drought stress and bark beetle outbreaks have caused very large losses.
  • Suitable only for large gardens; the Christmas tree trade sells it at a fraction of its mature size.

What it looks like

A tall conical conifer with sharp four-sided needles set all round the shoot, and long pendulous cones that fall whole — the readiest way to separate it from the firs, whose cones stand upright and disintegrate in place.

Sources

  • The World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting — Routledge (1999) · Historical text
  • HoneyHQ editorial synthesis — HEKNO Ltd · HoneyHQ synthesis

How sources are selected and weighted is set out in the sources and evidence policy.

Tools for planning planting

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