Picea abies

The tree grows to over 50 m, has red brown or grey bark, green four sided needles standing out on all sides, and is monoecious.

The Czech Pladias database records Norway spruce as wind pollinated, so its flowers are not a nectar source for bees.

Info Flora gives the flowering month of Norway spruce in Switzerland as May.

In Switzerland it grows in forests on acid soil from the colline to the subalpine belt, but it is not original in the lower parts of the Central Plateau.

According to the German bee institutes' newsletter, two bud scale insect species and five bark aphid species occur on spruce.

The two spruce bud scale insects, also called Lecanien (Physokermes), often start producing honeydew as early as May.

The Swiss forest protection service WSL states in its leaflet on Physokermes piceae that bees collect the honeydew of spruce bud scale insects and that it is an important raw material for forest honey.

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

Honeydew is produced by plant sucking insects that take plant sap, filter out the protein they need and excrete the surplus, mostly sugar and water.

A PLOS ONE study in Baden-Wuerttemberg sampled honeydew on spruce from the scale insects Physokermes piceae and P. hemicryphus and the aphids Cinara pilicornis and Cinara piceae.

In that study the honeydew of the spruce aphid Cinara piceae had the highest share of the trisaccharide melezitose, while Physokermes honeydew on spruce had much lower proportions.

Melezitose rich honeydew gives the so called cement honey, which crystallises hard and light grey in the combs and cannot be extracted.