Talh acacia

Value to bees

Nectar

High

Pollen

High

As a honey crop

Major honey crop — yields a surplus in good years

Which bees, and why

Worked by the African honey bee and by the small dwarf honey bee across its range, both of which forage at temperatures that would keep a European colony inside.

Worth knowing

A major dry-season source across the Sahel and Arabia, and the backbone of migratory beekeeping in Sudan.

Flowering

In flower

February to April (northern hemisphere)

Late dry-season flowering, before the rains, which is when Arabian and Sudanese colonies take the crop.

When nectar flows

Free and heavy for a short window, and concentrated by the dry air into an unusually low-moisture honey.

Year-to-year variation

Entirely dependent on the previous season's rainfall. Consecutive drought years remove the flowering altogether.

What it does to the honey

Gives a thick, dark, low-moisture honey with dried fruit, molasses and a savoury caramel depth quite unlike the pale Robinia honey that shares the acacia name.

Growing it

Conditions

Full sun in seasonally arid country, tolerating both drought and periodic waterlogging on clay.

Size

6-12 m.

Native range

The Sahel and East Africa from Senegal to Ethiopia, the Nile valley, and the western Arabian peninsula.

Suits

Farm scale

• Tapped for gum arabic across the Sahel, and the honey is harvested from the same stands.
• Not a garden tree anywhere outside the dry tropics.

What it looks like

A characteristic flat or umbrella-crowned thorn tree with striking rust-red bark that rubs off as powder, long straight white paired spines and abundant bright yellow flower balls.