Hyssop as a honey plant specially sown for bees

 

Honey plant hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis L.) Often, hyssop as a honey plant is specially grown for bees.

Hyssop honey plant is an unpretentious, drought-resistant, winter-hardy honey plant that grows remarkably well.

 

The hyssop honey plant is undemanding to the soil, however, excessively moist soil is detrimental to it. In the garden, hyssop feels great in a sunny, dry place with light fertile loam. Hyssop bushes grow in one place for 5-10 years. The height of erect, tetrahedral, numerous shoots of hyssop officinalis branching from below usually reaches 40-80 cm (in favorable conditions and higher). Young shoots of hyssop are green, and the lignified lower part of the shoots turns brown. Dark green elongated leaves of hyssop are opposite, almost sessile, small, with a sharp top and smooth edges.

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Hyssop blooms in July-September. However, when cutting flowering inflorescences in summer, lateral branching and the formation of new buds are observed on the cut shoots of the bush. Then the flowering of hyssop is significantly extended - until the snow falls.

The small flowers of hyssop have a characteristic structure for labiates. There are plants with blue, blue, pink, white, purple-lilac flowers. Hyssop flowers are arranged in several pieces in the axils of the leaves of the upper part of the stem, forming a long spike-shaped inflorescence. In hyssop, the flowering of the inflorescence is stretched: gradually more and more flowers open on it. This allows the hyssop bush to retain its decorative effect for a very long time.

Hyssop honey plant is of great importance for bees, as it provides them with a lot of aromatic nectar and pollen. The nectar disk is located in the hyssop flowers under the fruit. Hyssop honey belongs to the category of the best varieties. Hyssop blooms for a long time - from July to mid-autumn (in the Crimea from June). In Bulgaria, hyssop as a honey plant blooms from June to August.

There are plants with blue, white and pink flowers. A study of the honey productivity of these varieties near Moscow showed that plants with blue flowers give from 38 to 60 kg, with white - 116 and with pink - 121 kg per 1 hectare.

According to the Agrobiological Station of the Tyumen Pedagogical Institute (I.S. Sharygina, 1962), the nectar productivity of hyssop was 277 kg per hectare in plants of the second year of life, 405 kg in plants of the third year and 789 kg per hectare in the fourth year. The sugar content of the nectar ranged from 29 to 48%.

Isoppa honey is considered one of the best varieties of honey.