Sumac

Value to bees

Nectar

High

Pollen

High

As a honey crop

Minor honey crop — a surplus only locally or occasionally

Which bees, and why

Hundreds of small open flowers on an upright panicle, fully accessible, and worked by honey bees, wasps and small solitary bees together.

Worth knowing

An underrated source, notable because it grows in exactly the marginal roadside and old-field ground that supports little else.

Flowering

In flower

June to July (northern hemisphere)

Early summer, and it overlaps usefully with the gap between spring blossom and the late-summer composites.

When nectar flows

Free and generous while it lasts, and a large stand can produce a genuine surplus in the Appalachians.

What it does to the honey

Gives a dark amber honey with a tart, faintly resinous character and a distinct sour-fruit edge unusual in an American honey.

Growing it

Conditions

Full sun on poor dry ground. It thrives in exactly the conditions that defeat better-behaved shrubs.

Size

2-8 m depending on species, spreading widely by suckers.

Native range

North America, with related species across the Mediterranean and the Middle East where the fruit is used as a spice.

Suits

Large gardens, Hedgerow, Meadow or wildflower area

• Suckers freely and will colonise a bank. Excellent where that is wanted and a nuisance where it is not.
• The autumn colour is among the best of any hardy shrub.

What it looks like

Suckering shrubs or small trees with long pinnate leaves turning brilliant scarlet in autumn, and dense upright conical panicles of small greenish-yellow flowers followed by fuzzy dark red fruit clusters.