What bees do in autumn
A colony changing its own physiology for winter, a bumblebee colony dying, and the last generation of solitary bees sealing their nests.
Bees and plants in autumn
Autumn decides whether a colony survives the winter, and it does so through one plant more than any other. Ivy in October is worth more to a northern European colony than most of what flowers in June.
September to November · 149 plants in flower · 81 bees on the wing
The best autumn plants for bees
September and October forage is worth disproportionately more than anything else you can plant, because it determines what survives the winter.
The honey bee colony
The colony raises a physiologically different kind of worker in late autumn. Winter bees carry elevated levels of vitellogenin, a storage protein that lets them live for four to six months rather than six weeks, and they are reared on the last good pollen of the year — which is why autumn pollen matters so much more than autumn nectar. The colony also expels the drones, which have no function once mating season is over, and contracts into a cluster. Ivy provides both nectar and pollen in quantity from September to November and is the single most important autumn plant in Britain and northern Europe.
Bumblebees
The colony dies. Workers, males and the old queen all die with the first hard frosts, and only the new queens — mated in late summer — survive, each finding a hole in the ground to hibernate alone until spring. That means an autumn bumblebee is almost always a new queen feeding up for hibernation, and what she finds in September and October determines whether she has the fat reserves to survive six months underground. Ivy again does most of the work.
Solitary bees
Nearly all are already dead. The generation now underground or in stems is a set of provisioned cells containing larvae or pre-pupae that will not emerge until spring. That has one very practical consequence: an autumn tidy-up that cuts and burns hollow stems, clears leaf litter or turns over bare soil destroys next year's bees, invisibly, and nothing about the garden looks any different.
What actually helps in autumn
Leave the ivy alone and let it flower. Do not cut hollow stems until spring. Leave leaf litter. Autumn is the season where doing less is the whole of the advice, and where the most damage is done with a tidy conscience.
What this group covers
12 of 12 months have something in flower. Nectar and pollen are counted separately and a month counts only where at least one plant offers that resource at moderate value or better — a plant in flower is not the same as a plant worth visiting.
| Month | In flower | Nectar | Pollen |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 25 | Yes | Yes |
| February | 19 | Yes | Yes |
| March | 12 | Yes | Yes |
| April | 10 | Yes | Yes |
| May | 24 | Yes | Yes |
| June | 62 | Yes | Yes |
| July | 100 | Yes | Yes |
| August | 113 | Yes | Yes |
| September | 124 | Yes | Yes |
| October | 72 | Yes | Yes |
| November | 52 | Yes | Yes |
| December | 35 | Yes | Yes |
What to plant for autumn
Honeys harvested in autumn
Northern-hemisphere harvest windows from the honey records. A harvest window is when a flow is taken off, which is later than the flowering that produced it.
- Ivy honeyStrong, faintly bitter and distinctly herbal — closer to a dark honey in character than its pale colour suggests.
- Phacelia honeyMild, clean and gently floral with a faint herbal freshness — an easy honey with no rough edges at all.
- Ethiopian white honeyClean, sweet and faintly herbal, with a smooth dense texture that dominates the impression more than the flavour does.
- Purple loosestrife honeyStrong and tangy with a distinct green herbal note over dark caramel — an unusual profile that some tasters find sharp and others find refreshing.
- Blue curls honeyExtremely delicate with a clean sweetness and a faint herbal lift — one of the mildest honeys there is, and prized for exactly that.
- Brazilian pepper honeyWarm and peppery with a distinct resinous spice and a faint tartness — genuinely reminiscent of the pink peppercorns the plant produces.
- Campanilla honeyLight and clean with a soft floral sweetness and a faint tropical fruit note — approachable and pleasant rather than distinctive.
- Rabbitbrush honeyStrong and resinous with a bitter herbal edge and a distinctly medicinal note — one of the more challenging American honeys and an acquired taste at best.
- Eucalyptus honeyWoody and faintly medicinal, with caramel and a cool eucalypt lift. More savoury than its colour suggests.
The rest of the year
Months here are northern-hemisphere temperate. Southern-hemisphere readers should shift by roughly six months — but that shift is an approximation rather than a translation, because day length, rainfall pattern and the local flora do not shift with it. Records that genuinely span both hemispheres say so.
Plan the season
- Seasonal bee planner
It is this season and I want to do this — what should I plant?
- Flowering calendar
What should I plant so that something is always in flower for bees?
- Bee-friendly garden planner
What should I plant in the space I actually have?