Strawberry clover

Value for beekeeping

Strawberry clover is a perennial clover that creeps along the ground and favours saline, clayey and damp soils, stream banks and low-lying pastures. The flowers in its pinkish-white heads have short tubes, so honey bees reach the nectar easily. Like white clover it yields good nectar, and on saline, wet pastures it is often the most important legume source.

Flowering

It flowers over a long period from June to September and flowers again on grazed or mown land. After flowering the heads swell into strawberry-like fruit clusters, which give the plant its name.

Honey and pollen

It is not produced as a separate monofloral honey; blended into clover and meadow honeys, it gives a light-coloured, mildly aromatic honey. Pollen is also collected, but its real value lies in its nectar.

Note for the beekeeper

Because it tolerates salinity and short spells of flooding, it is sown to improve barren and saline pastures. Apiaries near such land benefit from it in midsummer, when other plants have dried up.