ALMOST BEEKEEPING - RELATED TOPICS > GARDENING AROUND THE HOUSE
"Bees love it" plants
Finsky:
I have searched 40 years plants which beed are fond of. The best are evel weeds and nature are full of them.
But there are some plants which are garden flowers and "bees lowe it" flowers. But not many.
Leonurus cardiaca is a plant which make bees and bumble bees mad. Rthere are so much bees that surely flower are not rapid enough to exrecete nectar or pollen at that speed. I got Leonurus fron London Kew Garden. It belongs also in Finland to native vegetation.
One flower may have thousands of little flowers
http://images.google.fi/images?q=Leonurus%20cardiaca%20&hl=fi&lr=&sa=N&tab=wi
I also tryed Leonurus sibirica last summer, and it was guite good for bees, but not like L.cardiaca. It has bigger flower.
Perennial Verbascum species are good. They give only pollen.
All poppies are good for pollen.
Here is some flowers
http://www.swsbm.com/Images/Images_H-L.html
Lesli:
Last summer, mine loved the mints: catnip, especially. They were all over it, along with fat bumblebees.
They also loved the goldenrod and asters (which can be garden flowers, but around here grow wild in huge numbers).
latebee:
One of the things that surprized me when I started keeping bees was thir preferences in flowers. Finsky in my opinion, you are correct in your assesment, they seem to prefer native wild plants over most cultivated species. I had never really noticed before I had bees what drew them in. A real shocker for me was how they go for sumac(rhus),when it is in bloom the shrubs are just loaded with bees. Another big surprize was how they love onions(alliums) of any kind. Some of the plants they prefer really dont have flowers as I typically think of flowers,like willow(salix) or filbert((corylus)and maple(acer). Lots of fun to watch them work.
Finsky:
I heard that in USA or in Canada there are not so plenty of willows. Is that true?
In Finland during May different kind of willows are paractically only food for bees. Willow pollen is "light" protein source. Bees need over 20% raw protein content, but willow has 15-18%. Legume pollen has 60% rawprotein.
latebee:
I cant speak for the entire region, but locally especially near wet ground there are plenty of willows. bleep willows,black willow, gold and green weeping willows. Also some other type of shrub willow that I cannot identify.
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