Just 1 Tree

[Wingy]

If you could plant just 1 tree that could grow into a substantial size. What would be of most benefit for honey bees? Looking NW England Manchester.
I have a Mimosa ready to plant out and know it flowers early but if the weather is like it was this spring it would have gone past before the bees got to it.

 

[CaptainCymru]

If you could plant just 1 tree that could grow into a substantial size. What would be of most benefit for honey bees? Looking NW England Manchester.
I have a Mimosa ready to plant out and know it flowers early but if the weather is like it was this spring it would have gone past before the bees got to it.

Manuka ,then mark the honey up a million percent .

 

[GuyNir]

Mimosa can’t take winter frost well. I had a couple, not any longer…

 

[jool]

Willow for early pollon, Lime, sweet chestnut, horse chestnut, linden, acacia are all excellent pollon and nectar providers. All however take a while to mature. Fruit trees give more instant results.

 

[Murox]

Only one eh? I would stick with a native like Acer campestris Field maple.

edit ~ of course you plant trees for your children and grandchildren to benefit from

 

[mbc]

Only one eh? I would stick with a native like Acer campestris Field maple.

Yup, field maple or sweet chestnut, a few years wait for either to mature into a nectar yielding tree mind

 

[Erichalfbee]

Not for honey but for the bees I’d choose willow or sycamore

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Or a Cedar?
Then when it's grown you can chop it down and make loads of lovely cozy hives

 

[The Poot]

I’d go for holly. The bees like the flowers, the birds like the berries and silly people pay for sprigs of it in December.

 

[W0otz]

Rowan? They get to a reasonable size without being huge. Flowers for pollinators and birds love the berries.

 

[E&MBees]

Crab apple. Beautiful flowers for the pollinators, fruits for the birds and for jelly.

 

[Brenda]

One tree would have to be Willow because it is an early source of Pollen for the Bees. Currently the Bees fly on Willow, Sycamore, Holly, Oak, Lime, Spring Laurel and Portuguese later, both in the form of Hedging, with large specimens of Boxwood. My Bees are in a very old garden of an Estate where most of the Trees and Hedging were planted around 1750. The Trees have enormous girth mostly, therefore possibly around 300 years old.

 

[Ian123]

https://www.honey-plants.com/calendar/connecticut/norway-maple/For me this 1 for it’s early flowering. As a kid we had a large 1 hanging over the chicken shed and apiary. You could lay on the shed roof and literally be in the canopy alive with bees.

 

[polomadh]

Henry’s lime

 

[Angry_Mob]

In Ted Hoppers guide to bees and honey he describes willlow as one of the real must haves. In particular pussy willow - salix caprea; on that advice I planted 30 or so in winter.

 

[Ed the Beek]

Pride of India, it flowers later than any other tree and gives a late summer flow. we have 2 in our village and people stop and look up because they can hear the bees buzzing, it gets covered in bees.

 

[Pansypots]

Lime, the scent is amazing and bees love it. This is one we have on the farm, absolutely beautiful but huge!

 

[Erichalfbee]

Pride of India, it flowers later than any other tree and gives a late summer flow. we have 2 in our village and people stop and look up because they can hear the bees buzzing, it gets covered in bees.

I have one of those. It’s grown about an inch a year

 

[IndiBee]

A money tree

 

[Murox]

Pride of India, it flowers later than any other tree and gives a late summer flow. we have 2 in our village and people stop and look up because they can hear the bees buzzing, it gets covered in bees.

Thats just prompted my memory of my grandfather and his bees - I recall he had a lovely mature Catalpa (indian bean tree) in the front garden (the cottage was named after the tree) it always buzzed during the summer .