Eastern borage

Value for beekeeping

Eastern borage is a perennial member of the borage family that forms extensive carpets in damp beech, chestnut and alder woods, along streams and in the shade of hazelnut orchards, from the eastern Black Sea coast to the western Black Sea and the Strandzha mountains, the Caucasus and Bulgaria. Before the leaves appear it opens flower clusters that catch the eye with their backward-curled purple-blue petals and protruding stamens. At the end of winter, as the weather warms, honey bees head straight for these flowers for nectar and pollen.

Flowering

Depending on altitude it flowers from February to April; on the coast flowers can be seen even at the end of January.

Honey and pollen

It has no honey of its own. Its value lies in stimulating brood rearing with the first fresh nectar and pollen as colonies come out of winter.

Note for the beekeeper

Its young shoots are gathered as a vegetable in Black Sea cooking; excessive gathering and uprooting can thin out the carpets. In apiaries next to hazelnut orchards and woodland edges, protecting the stands of eastern borage helps early spring build-up.