Hello fellow DG'ers! I am new at the Butterfly Gardening thing, but I started mine for Butterflies and Bees. The amazing thing is......it worked. Kind of corny, I know, but it's just this little "wow" I got after what seemed an eternity from seed to flower (plus the struggle behind clearing that patch of land.) I don't have much- some things that may or may not officially be "butterfly" plants, but I have a lot of room to expand and I am wondering if there is a thread or a resource that talks about the plants that bees like and also a resource for identification of bees. I am seeing bees that I never saw before, and I had no idea that there were hundreds of bee species. One was black and white striped and the other was irridescent green of varying hues. They really seem to love Gallardia and of all things, I leave some of the weed Spanish Needle in the garden for them.
Anyone on this Forum Into Bees
I’ve fallen in love with bees this year too! I’m very interested in what plants have been successful for other gardeners as well, but here are some of what was popular this year around here….I had a small sunflower patch which was a tremendous hit with the bees, and they also loved the tropical waterlilies, scabiosa, impatiens balfourii, wholly thyme, campanula, lemon blossoms, brugmansia, mandevilla, caryopteris, and salago. This has been my first full year in this location, and my tiny “yard” was pretty much devoid of all plant and animal life when we moved in, so I understand your wonder and excitement as new critters start to arrive :-).
Fortunately, bees can use most of the nectar plants that butterflies use. Butterflies and bees have both been using the White Mistflower since it started blooming last month. I've also seen bees enjoying the wild asters, Frostweed, Lions Ears and some of the salvias this fall. I'm just happy they are here. There's been times the last couple years that the European honeybees were absent...and only scattered native bees showed up...but very few. Some plants really need the bees for pollination.
Blanket flowers are a magnet for all insects I think! And those Spanish Needles may stick to your socks (and everything else) but they are a host plant for the Dainty Sulphur, and a popular nectar plant with bees and butterflies. I live on the corner of a main road so I always leave the Spanish Needles growing down by the road (but no tin my flower beds). I also have bees and butterflies on my porterweed constantly. The butterflies chase each other away, but they tend to leave the bees alone.
I too, have noticed several kinds of bees which surprised me as well. Earlier in the year I had these larger kind, but now I think I might have regular honey bees. I'm starting my first vegetable garden this year so it's nice to have a ready supply of pollinators around!
Melanie
I knew I had a picture. I'm guessing these guys are some kind of bee. The bees that tend to be on my blanket flowers look like they have a hard, shiny, glossy black area and are a little smaller than the bumble bees.
Oh yeah, I just happened to get these guys when I was taking a picture of this mutant bloom.
Wow, sunnyg- that's quite a list. Gives me some items to look into collecting, and yes, I planted sunflowers earlier this year and am waiting to see if they come back from seed next year. I've also definitely noticed honeybees in the brugmansia here, so I refuse to use any imidacloprid products on those plants as I've become an avid collector since DG.
Hi Linda. Thanks for your ideas as well. I've got porter weed, but not in the "bee and butterfly garden." I also wonder as I've got a Calliandra I've brought along for 2 years to large blooming size....if a plant is isolated- how much activity does it get? Maybe it's just that I love that fact that I can walk up to the "B+B" garden and know I will always see something.
Mellie- I'll look up the Dainty Sulphur. We get a small palette of butterflies, but lots of them. Not a day goes by that I don't see Zebra Longwings, and of course often Gulf Fritillary. We get at least the Monarch larvae since I started planting Asclepias. In fact, I couldn't believe I have flowers for once in about 8 months or so and I vigorously plant that just for them to eat. We have citrus so we see plenty of orange dogs and the actual swallowtail- mostly the giant one with more black than yellow. There are a few others I don't know, but they are more occasional. I had my best experience with bees when I had a lovely large vegetable garden in Orlando. I companion planted with a lot of marigolds and whatever annuals were on clearance. The bees buzzed so loudly in the morning you would think the whole hive was there. It was amazing. I had wanted the area I currently have to be a vegetable garden, but that will be a long time to come because of various factors- mainly that this property is so BIG!!!! Too much to do (or is it that my interests have expanded exponentially........) Thanks for the picture. I wanted to try to get some this morning, but I had to spend all day watering. My layman's term for that type of bee is "sweat bee," which is to say the smallest of bees. I get plenty of those, too, and they seem to be the least indesrciminate when it comes to flower types. They are the only bees that visit the cosmos.....maybe that is just because the larger bees chase them off the "good" flowers.
Thanks all for your responses! I will try again tomorrow for pictures.
Here are the bees that have been hanging out lately. They pretty much stick to the purple porterweed.
Very neat Mellie! That purple porterweed looks like it gets a lot of action. I'm looking forward to seeing some of your bees, Fauna!
I just found this interesting bee research site. It is primarily about bees in the San Francisco Bay Area in CA, but has some plant lists and other info that might be of interest
Here is the main site: http://nature.berkeley.edu/urbanbeegardens/index.html
Here is their plant list: http://nature.berkeley.edu/urbanbeegardens/list.html
A few other plants that seemed pretty popular this year with the bees were sedums, oregano, salvia, and veronica. I don’t know much about bees or butterflies, but I’m curious about all the activity in my little garden, and want to learn more!
Awesome pictures, you guys. Mellie, I have some porterweed coming along, and can't wait. Sunny- that is a beautiful lotus. Such a bonus the bees love it! Will check those links out. Not much action in the B + B garden today, although I saw a totally new (moth?!?!?!) in my "nursery production area." It was smallish, had dusty brown to black wings and had a hairy turquoise abdomen. Also happened to snap this just going after flower shots in the front yard (south of the pond area.) I think it is a fly mimicing a bee. I have read about this. I observed that it was drinking nectar with a "stylus." Also, there are no pollen baskets, yet pollen is all over this guy's abdomen and legs helter skelter.
Did the "moth" with the turquoise abdomen look like this?
Mellie- Oh my Gosh, yes. That is it! What is that?
Sunny- your first link definitely nailed the genus of the metallic green bees I am seeing- Agapostemon. Thank you! Thank you!
Yay! Those are very neat-looking bees :-)
Oh, that's a Long-tailed Skipper! A butterfly...it uses bean plants as a host plant.
Yup, that's a Long-Tailed Skipper. They're a butterfly, not a moth. And yes, they like beans! Or plants in the bean family. They kept laying eggs on my "Cherokee Wax" beans this summer.
Melanie
Well, as a matter of fact I have some Phaseolus in that part of the yard that makes some sort of yellow flower.
Do you guys know this flower/weed? What butterflies does it attract? I grew a bunch of stuff from seed, and this "weed" was one of them. I am trying to figure out if I got a weed seed in the pots, or if this is a good weed........
This one I know butterflies love. It's a "weed" (some sort of achillea maybe???), but I don't have it at home, so I pulled some up to transplant into my bee + butterfly garden.
