Southern beech
The dominant forest trees of the New Zealand South Island, and the basis of one of the most productive honeydew systems in any temperate forest. Scale insects embedded in the bark extrude long waxy threads tipped with a droplet of sugar, so that a beech trunk glistens and the whole forest smells sweet — a resource that bees, native birds and introduced wasps all compete for.
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 the droplets directly from the scale insects' waxy filaments. Bellbirds, tui and kaka depend heavily on the same resource, and introduced German and common wasps consume a very large share of it — one of New Zealand's most serious invertebrate conservation problems.
- Worth knowing
- No floral nectar and negligible pollen. The honeydew is the whole of its value, and it is enormous — which is exactly why nectar and pollen are rated separately in this catalogue.
Flowering
- Typically in flower
- January to April (southern hemisphere)
This is the honeydew season rather than a flowering window. The trees themselves are wind-pollinated and offer no nectar at all.
A typical window for the species, HoneyHQ synthesis — it moves with latitude, altitude and the year.
- When nectar flows
- None from the flowers, which are wind-pollinated. The entire resource is honeydew excreted by Ultracoelostoma scale insects feeding on the bark.
- Year-to-year variation
- Depends on scale insect populations, and increasingly on how much of the honeydew introduced wasps take before the bees reach it.
What it does to the honey
Contributes a malty, resinous, distinctly savoury character with low sweetness and a mineral finish.
Growing it
- Conditions
- Cool moist temperate conditions on acid soil. Slow-growing and long-lived.
- Size
- 15-30 m tall in good forest.
- Native range
- New Zealand. Related southern beeches occur in Chile, Argentina, Australia and New Guinea, in a distribution that maps the breakup of Gondwana.
- Suits
- Large gardens
- A forest tree, and slow to establish.
- Not suited to hot dry conditions.
- The honeydew system requires the scale insects as well as the trees, and it does not transfer to planted specimens.
What it looks like
Tall evergreen trees with small dark leathery leaves and dark furrowed trunks, frequently glistening with honeydew droplets suspended on fine white threads from scale insects in the bark.
Sources
- HoneyHQ editorial synthesis — HEKNO Ltd · HoneyHQ synthesis
- Assessment Report on Pollinators, Pollination and Food Production — Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) (2016) · Systematic review Link
How sources are selected and weighted is set out in the sources and evidence policy.
Guides covering this plant
- A New Zealand bee gardenA flora that evolved with few bees and mostly small pale flowers, about 28 native bee species, and the most acute invasive-plant problem of any country covered here. Planting for bees in New Zealand means being careful in a way it does not elsewhere.
- Where honeydew comes from: the trees, the insects and the honeyForest honey is not made from flowers. It is made from the sugary excretion of aphids, scale insects and planthoppers feeding on tree sap — and which insect it was matters more to the honey than which tree.
Tools for planning planting
- Flowering calendar
What should I plant so that something is always in flower for bees?
- Bee-friendly garden planner
What should I plant in the space I actually have?
- Plant recommendation tool
Which plant fills this specific gap?