Today’s letter F is for floral fidelity (see that alliteration there!). While honey bees are generalists and will gather nectar from pretty much any available flower, they prefer to forage from one plant at a time. This is called floral fidelity, and a honey bee will forage from a single type of flower on each foraging trip. Indeed, honey bees prefer to forage from the same plant all day long, and for this reason prefer trees, shrubs, and other plants with a plethora of flowers.

As explained on Honey Bee Suite, this is good for plants because a honey bee will nearly always have pollen for the flower they are foraging on, increasing the likelihood of pollinating the plant. Some bees like bumblebees are happy to change flowers mid-flight, which can make it harder to pollinate the individual flowers.

For honey bees, this may help save energy by focusing on a single plant. Indeed, you can often see honey bees walking from flower to flower on a tree or bush. The following images are on a large holly bush in our yard, which is buzzing with bees and other pollinators every spring.

Floral fidelity also means that honey bees are bringing in the same type of nectar and pollen with each trip. For a large find on a mature tree, large meadow, or monoculture farm, the entire hive will often focus on the biggest opportunity for multiple days at a time. This gives the beekeeper some assurance that the honey produced during this time is from a single flower source. This is why beekeepers will sell “Lavender honey” or “Sourwood honey” – it just means that there was a large bloom of these flowers near the hives and most of the foraging trips were to this flower.

If you want to see the whole alphabet in this series, you can start with letter A.

May you prosper and find honey.