Honeybees and wild pollinators need something in flower for as much of the year as possible. Open pasture or arable land often flowers in a short burst and then goes quiet for months — a forage gap. Trees and hedgerows fill that gap: willow and blackthorn open in late winter before most pasture flowers exist, hawthorn and fruit blossom carry spring, lime carries midsummer, and ivy closes out autumn. This model places those species on a farm plot as a shelterbelt hedge, an alley-cropping tree row and an understory, and lets you compare the resulting forage curve against open pasture across a full year.
The nectar & pollen index and the mini year-chart are a simplified, model-only score built from each species' bloom window and an assumed relative nectar value — useful for comparing designs side by side, but not a measured forage yield. The dashed "open pasture only" line is the same model with all trees removed, so you can see how many months drop into a forage gap without hedgerows or tree alleys.
Well-designed shelterbelts can reduce wind speed for a distance of roughly 10–20 times their own height on the leeward side — calmer air that helps bees fly in marginal weather and reduces evaporative stress on flowering crops and pasture underneath.
A 3D farm plot where hedgerow shelterbelts, alley-cropped tree rows and a beehive respond to the season you choose, showing how tree systems close the gaps between pasture bloom and buffer wind across the field.
Each tree species has its own bloom window across the year; stacking blackthorn, willow, hawthorn, fruit trees, lime and ivy around a field keeps something flowering in nearly every month, unlike open pasture alone.
Switch land-use design, add hedgerow rows, and step through the month slider (or auto-play the year) to watch canopy colour, the forage chart and bee activity respond, then toggle airflow to see the shelterbelt effect.
Shelterbelts can reduce wind speed for 10–20 times their own height downwind — calmer conditions that let bees keep flying in marginal weather and reduce stress on flowering crops beneath the canopy.