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  • Bee's Need Flowers...… whats more to say?
Bee's Need Flowers...… whats more to say?
 #9349  by Monbees
 26 Oct 2020, 01:08
Over the years l have planted various plants recommended for nectar/pollen/bee friendly etc. I have to say with little success. My bees seem to fly off in the opposite direction to my garden. Instead of planting just two or three of a species, should l plant whole swathes? Bees do come into my garden for early winter honeysuckle, and later, ivy.
 #9351  by Patrick
 26 Oct 2020, 12:56
Hi monbees

Well done giving it a go. There will be things that have benefitted even if your own bees may not have been very visible. Bumbles, solitary bees, hoverflies and moths may all have had a look in.

Honey bees will tend to target nectar sources that offer greatest reward vs effort vs other known available opportunities . It may be that whilst your flowers were available a whole field of something else was in flower a way away and they were away targeting that. Also be careful of the source of such plants, some less scrupulous or ignorant sources offer cheaply available commercial cultivar varieties of thing which may not actually produce nectar. Flowers that are double or tripled petal varieties or grown for the cut flower market may fall into that group.

You may indeed find a block of plants or shrubs and trees that provide nectar and pollen when others don’t will get a lot more attention. Long flowering things like phacelia or borage will tide bees over periods of dearth and may still flower until the first frosts. It may be why your autumn species are getting more attention?

I have an Abelia grandiflora in the garden that is largely ignored by honey bees when it starts to flower and becomes progressively more popular further into summer and autumn.
 #9357  by Monbees
 26 Oct 2020, 19:08
I do also have what l call a wildflower lawn, approx 1/4 acre, been running for 6 years now, which has a goodly selection of wildflowers. I do get many bumble bees, butterflies, crickets, grasshoppers etc, but, again, not many honey bees. My neighbour, 300 yds away, however, does have a much larger wildflower area, about 6 acres with extensive tree and shrub planting, so l guess l have answered my own question!
 #9359  by AdamD
 27 Oct 2020, 13:43
It can be disappointing that you plant flowers in the garden and then they are mostly ignored by your own bees. You are not alone. In addition to what Patrick has written, this may be partly because bees waggle dance only starts to work giving distance and direction from around 100 metres away, so the mechanism for getting bees to close-up flowers is less good as the round dance used for shorter distances gives no sense of direction. Having said the above, any good flowers will be visited by pollinators of all varieties so a GOOD THING!
 #9368  by Gerry
 28 Oct 2020, 20:59
In January 2020 edition of BBKA news I wrote an article "why are the bees ignoring the flowers" where I discuss and explain some of the reasons why honeybees might not be working the flowers in your garden.
 #9369  by Patrick
 28 Oct 2020, 22:09
Just checked it out on BBKA back issues. Interesting article Gerry.

Last January feels a lifetime away at present.
 #9393  by The Poot
 01 Nov 2020, 12:07
Flowers in my garden apiary are rarely visited by my bees until late in the Summer. I’m sure it’s as described above - richer pickings elsewhere. I have read “newly qualified” foragers generally mooch around flowers closer to the hive for a while, but don’t know if it’s true.
This year, as I was able to study things in the garden instead of being at work, I was delighted with the variety of other pollinators that did use the flowers.
It was clear that In late Summer, honey bees did use the garden and mainly used flowers in drifts, not individual ones.
I guess that their main forage earlier in Summer are trees that I don’t know exist.