Which plants do bumblebees and honey bees like the most?

The Herald Scotland

15 hours ago

We're often told that our bumblebees and honeybees prefer native plants, but climate change is adding to our insect fauna. For example Tree Bumbles, Bombus hypnorum, only arrived in the south of England in 2001 and I now see them in my own Borders garden so they're now well established in this country.
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Research shows that what matters to bumble and honey bees is the shape of the flower, the quantity and quality of the nectar and, to some extent the colour of the flower. Pinks, purples and blues are especially popular, and the rewards ned to be plentiful and easily accessible.
And let's not forget there are many other important pollinators, like solitary bees and invaluable hoverflies, whose larvae devour lots of aphids. And that seems specially important now as I've found it's unusually bad aphid year. Because they have short tongues they need flat topped flowers to access the nectar and they prefer flowers that grow in clusters like umbellifers.
So are native plant species essential? This was considered by scientists working at the National Botanic Garden of Wales. In a paper published earlier this month, the researchers checked whether seed mixes containing only species native to the UK were more or less attractive to bumble bees, honey bees, solitary bees and hoverflies. And how much the individual plants appealed to gardeners.
The results confirmed that bumblebees and honey bees went for most of the flowers in all the seed mixes but hoverflies did prefer the native blooms and were keen on yellow flowers, like Corn Marigold, introduced to Britain in the Iron Age.
Cornflower, long established but not native, and Phacelia, only cultivated since the early 19th century, were the most visited by bumble bees and honey bees. It would seem that these insects are quite prepared to move with the times and exploit suitable flowers regardless of whether or not they're native.
However, apart from Annual Toadflax, introduced in 1876, solitary bees were the group that made the least use of these special mixes. Unlike social bees, they have to look after their young as well as forage, so have to forage over a much narrower area that's close to their nests. The trial sites may not have been close enough to be useful to these bees. I certainly find a broad range of small, open flowers blooming over a long period seems to work with all the solitary species in my garden.
Pollinating insects, both rare and common, have suffered large declines recently, especially in urban and agricultural landscapes. So perhaps it's up to us gardeners to compensate for the damage our modern society has done. Providing a large variety of blooms, possibly boosted by annual seed mixes, will help.
Rose 'Gloire de Guilan' is an old rose variety (Image: free) Plant of the week
Rose 'Gloire de Guilan' is a very old Damask rose variety. It is highly fragrant as it was originally grown in Iran for making attar of roses for perfume. The pink flowers are semi double with prominent, golden stamens and silky petals which are slightly folded.
Good on poor soils, this rose grows to about 1.2 x 1.2 metres and has fresh green foliage.