Spindle

Value to bees

Nectar

Moderate

Pollen

Moderate

As a honey crop

Not a honey source

Which bees, and why

The flowers are tiny, flat and completely open, so they are workable by the smallest bees — yellow-faced bees and sweat bees that deep flowers exclude entirely. It also carries a very large aphid population, which supports hoverflies and ladybirds.

Tiny completely open flowers — accessible to the smallest and shortest-tongued bees, which is its real value.

Worth knowing

A modest nectar source and a highly accessible one, which makes it disproportionately useful to small bees.

Flowering

In flower

May to June (northern hemisphere)

A late-spring flow of two to three weeks.

Growing it

Conditions

Sun or part shade on almost any soil, and particularly at home on chalk. Undemanding.

Size

2-6 m tall.

Native range

Europe and western Asia, in hedgerow, scrub and woodland edge, particularly on chalk and limestone.

Suits

Hedgerow, Large gardens, Small gardens

• Excellent in a mixed native hedge and worth planting for the autumn fruit alone.
• Host to the black bean aphid, which will move onto broad beans in early summer — worth knowing rather than a reason not to plant it.
• Every part of the plant is poisonous, including the very attractive fruits.

What it looks like

A slender shrub with narrow leaves turning brilliant crimson in autumn, tiny four-petalled greenish flowers, and unmistakable four-lobed pink fruits splitting to show orange seeds.