Safflower

Value to bees

Nectar

Moderate

Pollen

High

As a honey crop

Minor honey crop — a surplus only locally or occasionally

Which bees, and why

The composite head presents accessible nectar and copious pollen, and honey bees measurably increase seed set even though the crop is largely self-fertile.

Worth knowing

A modest but well-timed flow that fills a real gap in irrigated arid farming country.

Flowering

In flower

June to August (northern hemisphere)

Late-summer flowering, which in an irrigated western landscape falls after most dryland forage has finished.

When nectar flows

Reasonable and reliable under irrigation, and negligible in genuinely dry conditions — safflower's deep taproot keeps the plant alive rather than keeping it secreting.

What it does to the honey

Gives a light amber honey with a mild, slightly nutty sweetness and a faintly bitter finish inherited from the thistle family.

Growing it

Conditions

Full sun, heat and deep soil for its long taproot. Drought-hardy but low-yielding when genuinely dry.

Size

0.6-1.2 m.

Native range

Probably the eastern Mediterranean or western Asia, grown for thousands of years for dye and now for oil across the Americas, India and Australia.

Suits

Farm scale, Large gardens

• Easy from seed and handsome in flower, though the spines make it unpleasant to handle.
• Dried heads are a florist's staple, and the dye use is far older than the oil use.

What it looks like

An erect branching annual with spiny-toothed leaves and orange or yellow thistle-like flower heads held singly at the branch tips.