Teide broom

Value to bees

Nectar

High

Pollen

Moderate

As a honey crop

Minor honey crop — a surplus only locally or occasionally

Which bees, and why

Honey bees are carried up into the national park for the flowering, under permit, and taken down afterwards.

Worth knowing

Rated by what the honey shows rather than by measured nectar volumes, which the sources read here do not give. The pollen rating is moderate because no source read here measures it.

Flowering

Typically in flower

May to June (northern hemisphere)

May is the flowering month given for plants in cultivation; in the caldera the honey from it is taken in May and June, the weeks shifting with altitude and with the year.

A typical window for the species, HoneyHQ synthesis — it moves with latitude, altitude and the year.

When nectar flows

Enough to give a monofloral honey: twenty-four honeys from Teide National Park were dominated by this plant's pollen, and the Tenerife designation recognises retama as one of its monofloral types.

What it does to the honey

A pale, low-conductivity honey; the study of Teide broom honeys proposes malic acid as a marker that sets it apart from other honeys.

Growing it

Conditions

High-altitude volcanic ground: intense sun, cold winters and very dry air. It is a protected wild plant in its range, not a garden subject there.

Size

2-3 m.

Native range

Canary Islands only: the high mountain zone of Tenerife, around Teide, and of La Palma.

What it looks like

A dense rounded shrub of stiff grey-green, almost leafless stems, covered in its season with fragrant milky-white flowers tinged with pink, in clusters along the previous year's shoots.