“Because it flowers for quite a long time, almost three months, it means that honey bees have access to it, even if you get adverse weather,” Barry says.
Flowering starts about now in this region, with pea-like flowers that attract birds like waxeyes or tui. Birds have the ability to pop open the bud, allowing bees access to the nectar, and high-quality pollen.
“The pollen is quite rich in crude protein,” Barry says.
“Bees need carbohydrates, protein, your minerals, that sort of thing, just like any organism. This is like naturally putting feed out there, instead of buying it in, so it’s on tap.”
The tagasaste or tree lucerne is also a good nurse crop, upholding and supporting transition on to native planting.
“The idea is to plant it across a ridge top. It seeds quite readily, the seeds go down the slope and help to restabilise a slope you would otherwise not bother with,” he said.
“I’ve been planting this for about 39 years. On a property I used to work at in Patutahi back in 1984, we planted about 100 tagasaste on a very dry, exposed hill that had very little top soil. It’s gradually spread to cover the entire hill now, and I can see native trees like kānuka coming up through it.
“The importance of it from a pollination point of view is it supports other bee species, not just honey bees — there are bumble bees and native bees as well. That property is now a large kiwifruit orchard and bumble bees are an important pollinator of kiwifruit.”
Could tagasaste be an option for the Tairāwhiti region, facing numerous landslides and unstable ground?
“Not all areas would suit, but for dry, north-west facing, even mobile erosion slopes, it does offer a solution,” Barry says.
“If you look at the recovery of Tairāwhiti from the recent weather events, there’s quite a conversation going on about that, about what we do, and it’s not a one size fits all.
“The big thing is you need to take browsing animals away, and that means deer, goat, sheep and cattle.”
Although if the tree was being used as a food source, “the leaves are probably equivalent in feed value to some of the best clover or rye grass that we have”, Barry says.
“It’s actually an emergency feed stock for farmers — it’s really good.”
In Western Australia the tagasaste and carob pods are used as a maintenance feed for live sheep exports.
In New Zealand history, early sightings of the tagasaste date as far back as 1880 with reports of a family in the South Island using the foliage and wood for feeding cows and home heating. A study done in the 1980s by Lincoln College, Christchurch, rated the tree as “good for shelter, easy to establish with a fast growth rate, tolerating salty and windy conditions”.
“It mainly provides vital sources of pollen and some nectar,” Barry says. “Coming out of winter, it helps the bees to build up. They start from a relatively small colony in winter and then they need to expand in the spring to build their hive up, to a larger one, to take advantage of the honey flow in the summer.”
Barry has planted in various properties in collaboration with landowners.
He is an ambassador for Trees for Bees, an innovative programme headed by Dr Angus Mc-Pherson and Dr Linda Newstrom-Lloyd and supported by the Ministry for Primary Industries. It presents options for farmers and landowners with advice and support, encouraging the incorporation of bee forage planting to the land.
“The idea was not just going to a landowner saying ‘can we plant for bees’, because the landowner has their own needs, or trees, for timber, shade, shelter, wetland, all those sorts of things. The idea behind Trees for Bees’ was to look at the range of trees to best fit the landowner’s needs, first and foremost, but hey, they might actually be good for bees too.”
For more information on Trees for Bees visit www.treesforbeesnz.org
