Winter honeysuckle

Value to bees

Nectar

Moderate

Pollen

Moderate

As a honey crop

Not a honey source

Which bees, and why

Worked by honey bees on any mild winter day and by the winter-active bumblebee queens that have become common in mild urban areas of southern Britain and northwest Europe — a genuinely recent behavioural shift, and one that makes winter forage matter more than it used to.

Short two-lipped tubular flowers with nectar within reach of a honey bee's tongue, which is not true of all honeysuckles — the long-tubed summer species are moth and long-tongued bumblebee plants.

Worth knowing

Moderate ratings that punch far above their weight because of when they arrive. Nothing else that is easy to grow flowers so reliably in December and January.

Flowering

In flower

December to March (northern hemisphere)

Flowers open in succession over a long period rather than all at once, so a single shrub provides something for three months rather than three weeks.

When nectar flows

Nectar is produced in small quantities and is available whenever it is mild enough for a bee to fly. The intense scent is the plant advertising to a very small pool of winter insects.

Year-to-year variation

Consistent as forage year to year, and never a crop. The value is entirely in the date on the calendar.

Growing it

Conditions

Sun or part shade and any reasonable soil. Fully hardy, entirely undemanding, and tolerant of neglect.

Size

1.5-2.5 m tall and as wide.

Native range

Eastern China.

Suits

Small gardens, Large gardens, Hedgerow

• Dull out of flower, so plant it where it is not the focus — behind something else, or by a path where the winter scent will be noticed and the summer plainness will not.
• Prune immediately after flowering in spring. Pruning in autumn removes the flower buds and the whole point of the plant.
• Cut a few stems for indoor scent; unlike willow catkins, there are enough flowers over a long enough period that taking some costs the bees nothing.

What it looks like

A twiggy, semi-evergreen shrub of no particular distinction in leaf, carrying pairs of small creamy-white two-lipped flowers along bare stems in winter. The related hybrid Lonicera × purpusii flowers slightly more freely and is often sold interchangeably.