Tamarind

Value to bees

Nectar

High

Pollen

Moderate

As a honey crop

Minor honey crop — a surplus only locally or occasionally

Which bees, and why

Large old tamarinds are among the trees the giant honey bee most often builds its open combs on, so the same tree supplies both the forage and the nest site.

Worth knowing

A valuable hot-season source across India and the Sahel, and one of the few substantial flows available immediately before the rains.

Flowering

In flower

April to June (northern hemisphere)

Hot dry-season flowering ahead of the monsoon, when much of the Indian landscape offers very little.

When nectar flows

Steady and generous, and the tree's size means a single mature specimen supports a great deal of foraging.

What it does to the honey

Gives an amber honey with a warm caramel body and a distinct tart edge that echoes the fruit without being derived from it.

Growing it

Conditions

Full sun, heat and drought tolerance on almost any drained soil. Frost-tender.

Size

15-25 m, and can live for centuries.

Native range

Tropical Africa, probably Sudan, cultivated for so long across South Asia that its origins were long assumed to be Indian.

Suits

Large gardens, Farm scale

• A very large and very long-lived tree, planted for shade as much as for fruit across its range.
• Slow from seed to fruiting, which is why old trees are treated as village assets.

What it looks like

A broad, dense, dark-canopied tree with fine pinnate leaves that fold at night, and small pale yellow flowers veined with red and orange borne in short racemes.