Goldenrod and Bees in Central Texas

Goldenrod comes into bloom across Central Texas in the fall, thickest through September and October, once the summer flows have quit and the colony is turning toward winter. Bees work it for two things at once, a dependable late nectar flow and a heavy load of pollen. The pollen matters more. It feeds the brood that becomes the winter cluster, the long-lived bees that have to carry the colony all the way to spring. Goldenrod is one of the last flows of the year, and in our yards the heaviest still running that late.

Goldenrod grows on a lot of Central Texas land, and most landowners either ignore it or set out to clear it. A good number clear it because they blame it for their fall allergies. That belief is wrong.

Goldenrod Gets Blamed for Ragweed’s Hay Fever

Goldenrod blooms at the same time as ragweed (Ambrosia spp.), and ragweed is what causes fall hay fever. Goldenrod is tall, bright yellow, and easy to spot from the road. Ragweed is drab and easy to walk right past. Goldenrod is the one you notice, so it’s the one that gets blamed.

Their pollen is built two different ways. Goldenrod pollen is sticky, dense, and heavy, made to cling to an insect working the flower instead of blowing around loose. Sticky pollen doesn’t drift through the air, and it doesn’t reach your sinuses. Ragweed pollen is the opposite, dry and fine and made to ride the wind for miles. That’s what’s loose in the air through fall allergy season.

Both of our common goldenrods carry a special-value-to-honey-bees rating from the Xerces Society, the pollinator-conservation nonprofit. Clearing goldenrod off your land does nothing for your ragweed exposure. It only takes forage away from your bees and from the native pollinators the rest of the land leans on.

Two Native Species Carry the Fall

Central Texas has several native Solidago species. Two of them are the important ones for bees, prairie goldenrod and Canada goldenrod. Between them they stretch goldenrod bloom across the whole back half of the year.

Solidago nemoralis, called prairie goldenrod or gray goldenrod, starts first. It blooms from June through October on dry, open upland, the thin-soil, exposed-limestone, caliche-flat country that covers so much of this region. It handles thin soil and drought. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center profile lists it as a nectar source across that window.

Solidago canadensis, Canada goldenrod or tall goldenrod, comes later. Its Wildflower Center profile puts the bloom September through November, on richer, wetter footing, the creek bottoms and meadows and stream banks. Where S. nemoralis holds the dry upland, S. canadensis fills the low, damp margins.

Between the two, a place can carry goldenrod bloom from June through the first hard frost. The flow that puts real weight on a hive, though, is the fall push in September and October, when the late nemoralis and the canadensis are both open.

Goldenrod is the one flow we don’t pull. The honey stays on for winter, and the pollen it brings is worth more to the bees than the honey.

Why the Fall Timing Counts

Central Texas summer dearth usually runs from about mid-July into September. The last real flow before it is horsemint, back in June. Through a hard dearth the colony pulls back, foraging slows, the brood nest shrinks, and the bees eat into stored reserves. By the time the heat breaks, the colony is smaller than it was at its spring peak.

Then the fall goldenrod comes on, right as the colony starts to rebuild. The queen is laying again after the dearth pinch, and the brood going into the combs now is the brood that will winter. Those September and October bees are the long-lived winter bees, the ones that hold the cluster together through the cold and raise the first brood of spring before any forage is back.

Winter Bees Run on Fall Pollen

What those bees are made of depends on what they eat now. Winter bees carry fat bodies that a summer worker never develops, packed with protein reserves. That protein comes from pollen, and goldenrod throws it in quantity right when the colony needs it most. On a good fall flow the winter bees go into the cold well-provisioned and live for months. A colony that comes up short on fall pollen comes into spring weak, or doesn’t make it at all.

The nectar side is real too. The pollen comes every fall the plant blooms. The nectar surplus rides on the rain, heavier in a wet fall and thinner in a dry one. Most falls the bees still pack real weight in goldenrod honey, darker and stronger than the spring crop, and we leave every bit of it on the hive. That fall honey is winter feed. A colony that works a good goldenrod stand packs enough of it to carry itself, and most falls we don’t feed it at all.

What Goldenrod Needs on Your Land

On most Central Texas land goldenrod is already there, standing in the fence lines, the field margins, the roadsides, the edges of unmowed pasture, and any patch of disturbed soil. Nobody planted it and nobody tends it. It shows up as arching sprays of small yellow flower heads along the upper stems, usually two to four feet tall. It stays out of the way in worked pasture, but it moves into open soil on its own and reseeds without much bother.

The most useful thing a landowner can do is leave those margins alone. Fence lines and pasture edges that go unmowed into October are where goldenrod sets and comes back year after year. Run a brush hog through them before frost and you’ve cut the fall forage at the worst possible time.

If a place has none and you want some, S. nemoralis is the one to plant on dry upland. It takes thin soil and drought. Broadcast the seed in fall or early spring with good soil contact, and give it time. It builds a root system before it makes much of a show above ground, but once it takes hold it stays and spreads.

The spring has its own big flow in the mesquite groves that fill the supers in April and May. Goldenrod is the fall counterpart, a heavy flow at the other end of the year. The rest of what blooms across the Central Texas year sits in the full wildflower library, from the first January forage into the fall.

Bloom season: June through November, with the flow that counts in September and October. S. nemoralis runs June through October, and S. canadensis September through November.

Forage value for honey bees: Dependable fall nectar and a heavy pollen load, among the last flows of the year and, in our yards, the heaviest still running that late. The pollen builds the winter bees. We leave the honey on the hive as winter stores.

Native status: Two native perennials, Solidago nemoralis and Solidago canadensis, family Asteraceae. Widespread across Central Texas.

Fall forage is part of what we weigh before placing hives on a landowner’s property. Goldenrod in the margins counts in a property’s favor, one more stretch of the year a colony can feed itself.