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NEW ZEALAND BEEKEEPER, DECEMBER 2016
Linda Newstrom-Lloyd (Trees for Bees Botanist) and Angus McPherson (Trees for Bees Farm Planting Adviser) STAR PERFORMERS PART 2: NEW ZEALAND FLAX FOR SUMMER TREES FOR BEES CORNER Trees for Bees has produced a new series of fact sheets showcasing the ‘best of the best’ bee plants that will maximise nutrition benefits for your bees. In this issue of the journal, the team explains why New Zealand flax is a ‘star performer’. For more information, see www.treesforbeesnz.org.
Phormium tenax harakeke flax New Zealand flax korari
Phormium cookianum wharariki mountain flax
New Zealand flax is a star performer because it has the highest protein that we have measured in pollen (ca. 35% to 45%) and plenty of pollen is produced in each flower. Flax flowers in late spring to summer (anytime from September to January), which can conflict with or complement the honey flow season. We worked with two species, Phormium tenax and Phormium cookianum in the National New Zealand Flax Collection at Landcare Research, Lincoln. We collected at several sites in East Coast/Gisborne as well. In the Flax Collection you can see a great range in height and number of flowering stalks and size of leaves. Flowers are usually red but some varieties have yellow or greenish petals. Pollen Access to pollen is easy for bees because each flower has six large anthers that protrude well beyond the top of the floral tube. Honey bees always mix the pollen with nectar to form large pollen pellets in their pollen baskets (Figure 1), but native bees (Leioproctus spp. and Lasioglossum spp.) pack their hairy back legs with dry pollen without nectar. In contrast, another type of native bee, the masked bee (Hylaeus spp.) consumes the
Figure 1. Native New Zealand Flax: Phormium tenax from Sealers Creek in Auckland Island. Anthers protrude from the top of the tubular flower. The honey bee has large orange flax pollen pellets on hind legs. Photo: Finn Scheele ©Trees for Bees NZ.
from egg to adult, then one single large plant with 10 to 20 stems can support from 70 to 80 bees (for example, the Gold Edge variety from Three Kings Island), but a small plant with limited stems will support fewer bees. Nectar New Zealand flax flowers produce bountiful nectar (ca. 100 μl) which sometimes fills the floral tube to the brim. Even honey bees with their short tongues can access nectar at the top of the tube (see Figure 2, next page). But the floral tube is too narrow and filled with stamens for honey bees to crawl
pollen to store in its crop (Figure 3a). This pollen is then regurgitated in the nest to make a ball of pollen to provision the fertilised egg, which will emerge as a bee the following spring. Competition for pollen between native and honey bees can be observed when bee densities are very high (as shown in Figure 3b). The pollen in one flax flower weighs on average about 5 mg (range from 2 to 9 mg depending on the variety). Some large prolific varieties of flax can produce over 2000 flowers per season but small varieties with few stems produce only a few hundred. Since one bee needs from 120 to 140 mg of pollen to grow
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