Sage

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

The staminal lever is one of the most elegant pollination mechanisms in the plant world: a bee pushing into the flower depresses a hinged plate, which swings the anthers down to dust its back precisely where the next flower's stigma will touch. It works best on bees of the right size, and small bees often slip through without triggering it at all.

Corolla depth varies enormously across the genus. Culinary sage and the small-flowered salvias are within reach of honey bees; the long-tubed red salvias are hummingbird flowers in their native range and are largely robbed from the base by bumblebees elsewhere.

Worth knowing

Very high nectar and only moderate pollen — sage feeds adult foragers superbly and contributes comparatively little to brood rearing, which is a common pattern in the mint family.

Flowering

In flower

May to October (northern hemisphere)

Culinary sage flowers briefly in early summer; ornamental salvias such as S. nemorosa and S. microphylla flower from June until the first frosts, which is where their real value lies.

When nectar flows

Secretes well in warmth and tolerates drought. Many salvias will repeat-flower if cut back after the first flush, which effectively doubles the forage from one plant.

Year-to-year variation

Dependable at garden scale almost every year. A honey crop only from the wild chaparral sages of California, and there only after a wet winter.

What it does to the honey

Californian sage nectar produces a very pale, thick, mild honey with a low glucose content that keeps it liquid for years. The resinous chaparral character comes through only faintly — the plant is far more aromatic than the honey.

Growing it

Conditions

Full sun and sharp drainage. Most salvias die of winter wet rather than of cold.

Size

30 cm to 2 m depending on species.

Native range

Worldwide, with major centres of diversity in Central and South America, the Mediterranean and eastern Asia.

Suits

Containers and window boxes, Small gardens, Large gardens, Meadow or wildflower area

• Ornamental salvias such as Salvia nemorosa, S. × sylvestris and S. microphylla are among the best value bee plants for a small garden — months of flowering from one plant.
• Cut back after the first flush for a second one. This single action is worth more than adding another plant.
• Let culinary sage flower rather than clipping it for leaves all season; a flowering sage is a genuinely useful bee plant and a clipped one is not.

What it looks like

Aromatic square-stemmed plants with paired leaves and two-lipped flowers in whorls up a spike, in blue, purple, red, pink or white. Culinary sage has grey-green felted leaves; white sage is silver and strongly resinous; the ornamental salvias vary enormously.