BBKA Forum

I'm always interested to hear which garden plants (or in fact any plants) the bees are interested in. So which plants in your garden are the bees currently visiting? I have specified 'currently' because hopefully that might throw up some lesser known plants. Plus it's interesting to know what the bee/plants are doing in different areas of the country.

In my garden the bees are visiting Sedums and Heleniums regularly. I have also seen occasional visits to the Calamint and Borage. Not much else about, the Ivy isn't quite flowering yet.

I have quite a lot of Canadian Goldenrod but the bees don't seem to be interested in that, I'm not sure why.

Around here there are loads of Japanese anemone in flower just now in all the local garden and the bees certainly appreciate them, likewise the Abelia grandiflora shrub.

I also went in my riverside colonies last night to check how they were after the MAQs treatment and noticed quite a few with the grey / white strip on the back of their heads and thorax which indicate they have been on the balsam.

Patrick wrote: ↑

10 Sep 2018, 20:46

Around here there are loads of Japanese anemone in flower just now in all the local garden and the bees certainly appreciate them, likewise the Abelia grandiflora shrub.

That's interesting because we have some Japanese Anemone and the bees haven't been paying it much attention. I've seen the odd one collecting pollen but not that much activity considering the large number of plants.

What time of day have you noticed them on the flowers? Perhaps I am missing them.

Hi WTB

Can’t say they exactly mob them like borage or phacelia, but I have noticed them (quite possibly collecting pollen) on sunny afternoons. Not that much in flower around here to offer much alternative choice tbh.