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Author Topic: The Little Honeysuckle  (Read 2836 times)

Offline Lone

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The Little Honeysuckle
« on: August 12, 2011, 11:16:24 am »
At least, the picture on the label looks a bit like honeysuckle, but it has some fancy name, of course.  I spotted this little plant in a pot on the workshop bench, and asked the brothers (my landlords) why we needed another vine.  We always seem to be fighting the rubber vine, mile a minute, and poormans beans.  They told me the bees are always in the honeysuckle in town.  We just extracted a few frames of honey for them last week and they got their honeypot ready and welded a nice stand for it, so I thought they were enthusiastically trying to aid the starving bee cause.  That is, until I watered my garden.  I also watered the natives plantation outside the fence and pointed the hose at the newly flowering purple grevillea.  This plant has suffered much hardship and I think each one of us has torn off a young limb with a lawnmower, whippersnipper or hoe.  Yet it had just started to flourish, and was full of buds and flowers for the first time, and the bees were in them.  I was proud of this small battler.  Yet as I went to water it, I realised it was not where it was meant to be, right behind the shrub with the white flowers.  I moved to the side and it still did not appear.  I had obviously forgotten which part of the garden it was in.  I went outside the fence, and all I saw in its place was a nice smooth hole.  I didn't have far to look for the culprit, for a mere two yards away was a fresh cow pat.  "Lenny!" I called.  I knew it was his cow.  My cows are nicer.  Anyhow, the outcome of this tale is that a little scraggly honeysuckle vine is now growing just about opposite where the grevillea used to be, but inside the fence.
Does anyone know if honeysuckle benefits bees?  If it wasn't so dark and so cold I would tell you the fancy name from the label.

Lone

Offline MrILoveTheAnts

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Re: The Little Honeysuckle
« Reply #1 on: August 13, 2011, 01:50:09 am »
I don't know of any honeysuckles that honey bees love. The Japanese Honeysuckle seems to benefit large Carpenter bees the most but those typically bore holes in wood and are not wanted.

Coral Honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens, is great at attracting hummingbirds. It blooms best during the colder seasons of the year, so early spring and autumn.

 

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