Lavender and bees

Throughout the flowering period, intense beehive activity begins before sunrise and does not stop until after sunset. An estimated hundred bees can be at work simultaneously on each lavender plant. This activity is due to the strong secretion of nectar and the concentration of beehives in the cultivated areas.
 

Honey from Provencal lavender is famous for its high quality.
It has a clear, almost white color, pleasant taste and fineness of crystallization. Excellent for health, anti inflammatory respiratory and anti spasm virtues have been attributed to it.

The value of associating aromatic plants and beekeeping has been known since antiquity. In the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was recommended to plant lavender around hives:
"Lavender is one of a number of plants that are sought by bees, and in the rustic gardens in temperate European climates where rosemary does not grow well, lavender is planted around beehives because it gives a pleasant aroma to the honey gathered by bees from their flowers."

Exploitation of the plant and honey production from bees gathering nectar in lavender flowers have been practiced since long ago in Provence. This has sometimes provoked conflicts of interest that ended up generally by a settlement favoring apiculture.

Thus in 1777 a decree from the Sault City Council forbade “cutting lavender flowers and aromatic plants to safeguard the bees of the region.”

Lavender and lavandin are plants having high melliferous or honey producing value when grown in a climate favorable to beekeeping.
The period when lavender and lavandin flower corresponds to a time of famine for bees which explains the high number of beehives transported each year to the plantations.

* Sources : GINGINS-LASSARAZ (F.), Histoire naturelle des lavandes, Paris-Genève, 1826.
"Lavandes et Lavandins", Christiane Meunier, Editions Edisud, 1999
Photo : Steffen LIPP - 'Hives at Sault'