Bee Plant Finder Tool

The Bee Plant Finder Tool is a LUCID 3 interactive key that allows you to search for good bee forage plants that will supply nectar and pollen to bees in New Zealand.

This tool is designed to assist you to create lists of bee forage plants to meet your planting needs:

  • 222 bee forage plant species and varieties that bees love for pollen and/or nectar

  • 14 features (attributes) of the plants with 48 states (categories)

  • Three types of features

    • Site conditions and plant tolerances – e.g., soil moisture; sun/shade

    • Plant features – e.g., native/exotic; tree/shrub; flowering times etc.

    • Bee-related features – e.g., attractiveness to bees; surplus honey/nectar etc.

What can I do with the tool?

To create lists of candidate plants suitable for your planting sites, you can select multiple features in order of importance according to your priorities for different site conditions.
See Feature Descriptions for the Bee Plant Finder Tool.

You can select as many or as few features as you wish, and you can explore by ticking and unticking the states of features to show how different combinations of feature states deliver different candidate plants for your lists.
See an example strategy in the Instructions for using the Bee Plant Finder Tool.

Once you have worked up your candidate plant lists to meet the criteria you have selected, then it is advised that you vet the lists by consulting any of the following:

  • local plant experts

  • local or national nurseries

  • farm planting advisors

  • regional councils

  • internet plant descriptions.

By vetting your lists, you can ensure that you cover additional features such as frost, flooding, exposure, thorns, toxicity to certain animals, etc. These types of features were not covered in this tool due to lack of data. In addition, some plants may be invasive in one region or situation and not others. We have excluded any bee plant listed on the National Plant Pest Accord (NPPA) or in Weedbusters but regional or site issues are not covered.

Information sources

The key is based on 12 years of research by the Trees for Bees NZ team including:

  • extensive review of scientific literature on bee forage plants

  • observations in the field throughout New Zealand

  • experiences establishing 34 demonstration bee forage plantations on farms

Funding

This BPFT has been funded by the Ministry of Primary Industries Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures Fund (SFFF) Project 405853, with support from major donors within the apiculture and broader agricultural sectors, including Silver Fern Farms, Kintail Honey, Ingleby Farms, Comvita, Honey Trust, Airborne, New Zealand Mānuka, Wild Cape Honey, Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, the New Zealand Poplar and Willow Trust, and FAR.