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FORAGE

What's blooming in Central Texas, when it's blooming, and what it's worth to your bees. Native plants, wildflowers, and the forage calendar that drives everything else. Bees don't make honey out of thin air, they make it out of whatever's flowering within a few miles of the hive. So we pay attention to the bloom. This section is a working library of the plants that matter here, from bluebonnet and mountain laurel in the spring to goldenrod closing out the year. Each entry covers when a plant blooms, what it gives the bees, and how it fits the larger nectar flow across a Texas season.

Goldenrod (Solidago spp.) growing densely in natural habitat — masses of yellow flower clusters on arching stems, providing the last major nectar flow of the year for honeybees before winter

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Goldenrod and Bees in Central Texas

Goldenrod is among the last and heaviest flows of the Central Texas fall. Its dense late pollen builds the winter bees that carry a colony to spring, and we leave the honey on as winter feed.

White clover (Trifolium repens) flowers and trifoliate leaves — a naturalized European pasture plant and reliable honeybee nectar source blooming April through October in Central Texas

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White Clover and Bees in Central Texas

White clover makes one of the best-known honeys there is, but on dry Central Texas pasture you won’t find much of it. Where it grows, and why it mostly doesn’t grow here.

Prairie verbena spreading across open ground in Texas — low mat-forming plant with purple bloom clusters, a persistent honeybee nectar source from March through October

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Prairie Verbena and Bees in Central Texas

Prairie verbena is a modest, steady nectar source our bees work from March into October. It never fills a super, but a colony in range has something coming in most of the year.

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Horsemint and Bees in Central Texas

Horsemint blooms across Central Texas from May into July. It’s listed for native bees, but our honey bees work it hard, and in a wet spring we pull a surplus off it and bottle it as wildflower.

Honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa) showing creamy-yellow catkin flower racemes among bipinnate feathery leaves — the primary spring nectar flow for honeybees across Central Texas

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Honey Mesquite and Bees in Central Texas

Honey mesquite is the spring nectar flow Central Texas bees build the year around. It comes into bloom across the Hill Country in April, when strong colonies put up a light, mild honey in real volume.

Huisache (Vachellia farnesiana) in bloom — dense clusters of golden globose flower heads on arching branches, opening in January when little else flowers in Central Texas

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Huisache and Honey Bees in Texas

Huisache blooms in January, weeks ahead of the spring flows, when a Central Texas colony has almost nothing else to work. It’s early forage, mostly pollen, that feeds the late-winter buildup.

Texas mountain laurel (Dermatophyllum secundiflorum) in full bloom — clusters of tubular purple flowers on evergreen branches, one of the first native blooms open to honeybees in February and March

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Texas Mountain Laurel and Bees: What Blooms in February

Texas mountain laurel blooms late February through April, one of the earliest native sources in the Hill Country, giving bees early forage right when a colony is rebuilding after winter.

Texas bluebonnets (Lupinus texensis) in bloom — blue-purple flower spikes rising above palmately compound foliage, providing critical early-spring pollen to honeybee colonies in March and April

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Texas Bluebonnets and Bees: What Your Hives Get in March

Texas bluebonnets bloom March through May, and what bees take off them is pollen, not a nectar flow. Here’s how that early protein builds your colonies, and how to read it.

Texas Wildflowers in summer the deep yellows, purples and reds

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Central Texas Wildflower Library for Bees

A field guide to central Texas wildflowers for bees — what blooms, when it blooms, and what the central Texas forage calendar means for your hives.