French book Les plantes mellifères mois par mois

01 · MONTH BY MONTH

A calendar, not a herbarium

The arrangement by months is what makes it useful in practice: what a beekeeper needs to know about a melliferous plant is not only what it looks like but when it flowers and which gap in the year it fills.

Each species comes with several photographs so it can be identified in the field, not just from a plate. The obvious ones are there — rape, black locust, lavender — and so are the discreet ones, which are usually what carries the colony between the big flows.

02 · THE FLORA IS FRENCH

And the calendar runs on French latitudes

The book's frame is France. Across northern Europe the species overlap is high; further south the gaps show — rosemary, orange blossom and much of the Mediterranean scrub do not carry the same weight there.

And the calendar needs correcting mentally: further south, flowering runs weeks ahead of the French dates. As an identification guide and a way of thinking it works just the same; as a literal diary, it does not.

03 · WHO WROTE IT

Piquée, and why that matters

Jacques Piquée is a biology teacher and beekeeper, writes a monthly column in L'abeille de France et l'apiculteur and has overseen the AOP recognition of Vosges fir honey.

One welcome touch: the book also flags potentially invasive plants, which is the part usually left out of guides written from the melliferous interest alone.

04 · BEFORE YOU BUY

It is a French book about French flora. If you do not read French comfortably, there is no translated edition to point you to.