Abies alba

Silver fir grows to over 60 m, which Info Flora calls the tallest European tree, and has light grey bark that is more or less smooth when young.

Its needles are arranged in two rows, flat, whitish beneath with a green keel, about 2 mm wide and notched at the tip.

Info Flora gives the flowering month of silver fir in Switzerland as May.

In Switzerland silver fir grows in forests with deep soil in the montane and partly subalpine belt.

The German bee institutes' newsletter names the green fir aphid Cinara pectinatae and the large black-brown fir bark aphid Cinara confinis as the honeydew producers of primary importance for beekeeping on silver fir.

Because these fir aphids multiply more slowly, a mass outbreak can often be estimated already in the previous autumn from the overwintering eggs they have laid.

The Baden-Wuerttemberg bee forage catalogue names firs and spruces as the main pure honeydew suppliers, with pollen free flows that often fall in the lean second half of summer.

In mid June 2022 a bee institute newsletter from Freiburg reported that fir had regionally started to yield honeydew at the western edge of the Black Forest.

A PLOS ONE study in Baden-Wuerttemberg sampled fir honeydew from the aphids Cinara pectinatae and Cinara confinis and calls these hemipterans important honeydew producers on conifers in Germany.

In that study, honeydew of the fir aphids Cinara pectinatae and Cinara confinis contained much lower proportions of melezitose than honeydew of the spruce aphid Cinara piceae.

The LAVES bee institute in Celle lists fir among the flows that give honey an intense aroma, together with lime, sweet chestnut, heather and spruce.