Some bees are specialized for certain flowers and some are generalists, but every flower that relies on pollination has at least one type of pollinator. Plants that rely on just one pollinator or specialist bees that rely on just one plant are particularly vulnerable and co-extinctions of these plant-animal pairs can occur.
What is food for bees? Bees need both nectar, a sugary secretion, and pollen, a protein source. Both also provide a variety of minerals and vitamins, and other things important for their health.
We grow many native herbaceous plants that bees love, especially flowers in bees’ favorite colors: white, yellow, blue, and purple.
We’ve been surprised (although we shouldn’t have been) to find that many of our native shrubs, such as winterberries, have nectar-rich flowers, too, even if their flowers are very small.
Flowers being small is no barrier to having lots of food, but many hybrid flowers created for people’s enjoyment often have little or no nectar, or their flowers are so doubled that no bee could find its way to any food that did exist.
Many cultivars of coneflowers have been developed, such as this one I spotted at a local business, but it’s worthless for bees.
It’s interesting to see that native plants with intricate flower structures can be pollinated by the insects that evolved with them.
I’ve especially enjoyed watching bees squeeze into our native iris or into the jewelweed flowers, for example.
Nectar robbing
Bees sometimes engage in an interesting behavior called “nectar robbing.” Why do they call this robbing nectar? Because it’s violating the “contract” between plant and insect. It’s taking the flower’s nectar without pollinating the plant. In general, though, most of my bees are following the “rules,” and it’s not a big problem.
Plants for each season
It’s VERY important that bees have food available throughout the seasons. Here’s just a few of the plants we grow that our bees enjoy:
- Spring
- Summer trees and shrubs
- Summer herbaceous plants
- Fall plants including (and especially) goldenrods
And a surprise
We were surprised to see how enthusiastically bumble bees ate the pears that dropped from our tree.
These definitely are not the main course for these bees, though. Our native flowers are the most important part of our bee habitat’s food supply.
Resources
- The Xerces Society:
- Pollinator plants listed according to blooming season, water needs etc. for each ecoregion. (Although CNY is officially in the Great Lakes region, we border the Northeast region defined in these lists, so we take advantage of a wider variety of plants.)
- BBC News:
- HGCNY Bumble Bee Factsheet:
- We customized the Xerces/LBJ Wildflower Center list of Plants for Bumble bees to include only plants native to the Northeast. Download from our HGCNY Factsheets section. (If you aren’t in the Northeast, go directly to the Wildflower Center list for your own bumble bee-friendly native plants.)
- Cornell Botanic Garden:
- Creating a pollinator garden for native specialist bees of New York and the Northeast – EXCELLENT booklet!! [NOTE: Not all plants listed are native to NY]
- New “Botanic Buzzline” trail connects people, pollinators – Habitat connectivity is important! Communities need to get together to provide connected habitats.
- Creating a pollinator garden for native specialist bees of New York and the Northeast – EXCELLENT booklet!! [NOTE: Not all plants listed are native to NY]
- Pollinator Pathway:
- Wildflowers for pollinators through the seasons – a sample of flowers that provide continuous food for pollinators
- Amanda’s Native Garden (a CNY native plant nursery):
- Wildflower bloom schedule – a handy guide showing bloom periods of many native plants to help you plan to have something in bloom throughout the season
- TED Talk videos:
- The hidden beauty of pollination – Louie Schwartzberg or watch just the Beauty of Pollination video from this talk
- The beautiful tricks of flowers – Jonathan Drori
- Native Plant Trust (formerly New England Wildflower Society):
Reflections
What we see as a plain white or yellow bloom is revealed to a bee as a complex diagram complete with lines and patches that serve as landing guides to efficiently move bees to nectar and pollen. Some overly hybridized flowers bred for human purposes and not insects’ abilities can be very confusing to six-legged visitors. I have watched a honey bee stagger aimlessly on a florist’s lily. What to me was a lovely pattern of white, yellow and pink spotting on an ivory background was incomprehensible to the bee. It was as if someone had pulled out all the street signs and rearranged them randomly, and the bee could find no guidance to the nectar in the flower’s throat.
~ William Cullina, Flowers with a touch of the blues (and for more on this issue, see our cultivars and hybrids page)