Nectar and Pollen Sources

An observant Central Virginia beekeeper is identifying flowering plants in his area that are useful for producing nectar and pollen. There is a great diversity of flowering plants in a temperate region like Virginia, and a number of these are important bee plants. Virginia honey bees forage prolific nectar sources: clover, black locust, basswood or linden, and tuliptree. The Appalachian Mountains support the sourwood tree, which produces nectar in the higher altitudes. From the nectar of this flowering tree, bees make the famous sourwood honey. Many of the flowering plants produce both nectar and pollen to attract honey bees. There are seven families of flowering plants that can be considered exceptionally important to the honey bees. The rose family contains almonds, apples, pears, plums, cherries, blackberries, and hawthorns. The mustard family includes spinach, turnips, kale, collards, Brussels sprouts, and rape or canola. The legume family has peanuts, soybeans, peas, beans, indigo, alfalfa, kudzu vine, and the most prolific honey plant, clover. Some legumes are trees: mimosa, redbud, Kentucky coffeetree, and black locust. The snapdragon family includes mullein and the empress tree. The composite family includes the sunflowers, dandelion, goldenrod, and many garden flowers, like the coneflower and daisy. The mint family includes spearmint, peppermint, catnip, bee balm, lemon balm, and coleus. Finally, the magnolia family includes one important tree for the honey bees, the tuliptree, also known as yellow poplar. Almost any plant in these families can be expected to provide considerable amounts of nectar and pollen.

Beekeepers can identify obscure wildflowers that they observe attracting honey bees by following local guides like Weeds of the Northeast, by Uva, Neal, and DiTomaso. One person’s weed may be a beekeeper’s important wildflower. The Hive and the Honey Bee, edited by Joe M. Graham, lists a number of bee plants according to family and identifies them as nectar or pollen sources. Today’s photo is a bumblebee collecting pollen from native wildflowers at the seven thousand foot elevation on Pike’s Peak in Colorado.

--Richard

The Snapdragon Family

There are several families of plants that are considered to be important to the honey bees and other pollinators because they are good sources of nectar and pollen. With the pollinators in decline, many are attempting to help restore the food and habitat that the pollinators require. One way of doing this is by creating pollinator gardens. These are gardens of various sorts: flower beds, kitchen gardens, herb gardens, landscape plantings, vegetable gardens, even planters and window boxes. A key element in making a pollinator garden is to prudently avoid the use of chemical pesticides that will harm the pollinators. Having some undisturbed soil around the plantings helps provide habitat for underground nesting insects, like the bumble bees. One should choose plants for the pollinator garden that will provide food in the form of nectar and pollen or food for developing larvae.

One way to choose plants that will be effective attractors to the various species of pollinators is to select members of the important bee plant families. One of those families is the snapdragon or figwort family, Scrophulariaceae. This family is made of a number of colorful plants which make for beautiful natural plantings. Among the snapdragons are Gerardia, false foxglove, Indian paintbrush, blue toadflax, red penstemon, woolly mullein, and speedwell. This family also includes the foxgloves and snapdragons from which Digitalis is produced. The honey bee, through pollination of flowering plants, helps produce some of our important medicines. There is one woody member of the snapdragon family which can be found in old homesteads around the Arkansas Delta. It is the Empress tree shown in today’s photo: a large, spreading tree and a native of China, which was planted in the past and later escaped. Empress tree flowers in April and May. The flower buds are rusty tan husks that remain on the tree through the fall and winter.
--Richard