Salad burnet
A wind-pollinated dry-grassland herb without nectar; bees only occasionally collect its pollen, so its value for beekeeping is low.
- Nectar
- None
- Pollen
- Low
- Flowering
- JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
- Height
- 0,2-0,6 m
- Life cycle
- Perennial
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Salad burnet is wind-pollinated; its small flowers, which have no petals, are gathered into round heads and secrete no nectar. Bees collect the pollen shed from the dangling anthers of the male flowers only when other sources are scarce.
Flowering
It flowers from May to July on calcareous, dry grassland, stony slopes and roadsides. The upper part of each head carries female flowers with red stigmas, the lower part male flowers.
Honey and pollen
Its contribution to honey production is next to nothing. Pollen loads are seen so rarely that there is no reliable record of their colour.
Note for the beekeeper
It is included as a forage plant in pasture and grazing mixtures, but it is not a species to prioritise when establishing bee pasture. Great burnet (Sanguisorba officinalis), from the same genus, also gives nectar and is therefore more valuable to bees.