HoneyHQ

Scots pine

Pinus sylvestrisPinaceaeTree

The most widely distributed pine in the world, and — in Turkey specifically, through a closely related pine and a particular scale insect — the basis of the largest honeydew honey industry anywhere. Turkish pine honey accounts for a very large share of world honeydew production, and it rests on a three-way relationship between a tree, an insect and a bee.

Value to bees

Nectar
None
Pollen
Moderate
As a honey crop
Major honey crop — yields a surplus in good years
Which bees, and why
Honey bees collect honeydew from the needles and bark. The relationship is genuinely three-way: no scale insect means no honeydew, and Turkish beekeeping has at times deliberately introduced Marchalina to new forests — a practice with real ecological objections attached.
Worth knowing
No floral nectar, moderate wind-borne pollen that bees will collect, and honeydew in very large quantities where the scale insect is established.

Flowering

In flower
July to November (northern hemisphere)

The honeydew season rather than a flowering window, running from summer into late autumn in the Turkish pine forests.

When nectar flows
No nectar. In the Turkish pine forests the scale insect Marchalina hellenica feeds on the tree and excretes honeydew in enormous quantity, and this — not any flower — is what the bees collect.
Year-to-year variation
Substantial and more consistent than central European honeydew, because the Marchalina populations in Turkish pine forest are large and persistent. Fire and forest loss are the principal risks, and both have increased.

What it does to the honey

Dark amber to near-black, resinous and mildly sweet with a distinctly woody, slightly salty character. Low in glucose, so it stays liquid for a long time.

Growing it

Conditions
Full sun on poor, acid, free-draining soil, and exceptionally hardy. It is a pioneer that colonises heath and sand.
Size
20-35 m tall, and characteristically gnarled and flat-topped with age.
Native range
From western Europe to eastern Siberia — the widest natural range of any pine. Related pines including Pinus brutia carry the Turkish honeydew industry.
Suits
Large gardens
  • Tolerates poor sandy and acid soils where most trees fail.
  • Needs full sun; it is very intolerant of shade.
  • A large tree, though slower and more manageable than spruce on poor ground.

What it looks like

A tall pine with distinctive orange-red flaking bark on the upper trunk, blue-green needles in pairs, and an irregular flat-topped crown in old trees.

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.

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