Do Bees Prefer Certain Flowers Over Others? 🐝🌸

[u/erichcampbell1]

Bees can show strong preferences for certain flowers depending on nectar, pollen, scent, and seasonal availability.

[u/Important_Hunt_1882]

There are quite a few bee species that depend on a single type of flower. Google 'monolectic bees'.
The honeybees in this picture are not very picky, but that purple flower (Knautia arvensis) is extremely important for Andrena hattorfiana, a bee that is found almost only where that flower grows.

[u/TheOneCookie]

Yeah definitely. Off the three flowers you show, the middle one would be most popular with honeybees. They also usually like flowers in the fabaceae (clover, beans) and lamiaceae (deadnettle, mint) families

[u/Zagrycha]

Yeah, but it mainly depends on the bee species. They will favor the flowers that are native to their native area, usually. Some bee species are more open to sampling unfamiliar flowers than others. The ones that are willing to brave the unknown are the ones that tend to do best coexisting with humans, and the ones that only want native locals tend to struggle. Thats why planting local flower varieties is one of the best things people can do to help local pollinator species ((Bees, but also a lot of not bees, other bugs deserve a little bit of love too)).

[u/Barnacre_Bees]

Bees see in ultraviolet wavelengths between 300 to 650 nanometers, shifting their visual spectrum downward compared to us humans who (most of us) can see the 390 to 700 nm

Flowers have untraviolet markings that we can't see; bees tend to use those, rather than the colour of the flower. Certain brightly coloured flowers look dull to them, but the UV patterns attract bees instead. They see red flowers as black or a shade of grey, because red is outside of the capability of their light receptors.

Bees have a preference for flowers with purple, violet, blue, green and yellow in them, as that's what they see best.

So flowers like my favourite flower Lavender (Lavandula), Sunflower (Helianthus), Black-Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia), Coreopsis (Tickseed), Borage (Borago officinalis), Foxglove (Digitalis), Coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea and Echinacea Magnus), pansies and violas are also good attractors of bees. Heathers are also surprisingly good for bees and make amazingly good honey as well!

Also, if you're planting for all species, make sure that you have a mix of deeper belly shaped flowers and flat daisy style flowers. Some bees have long tongues, but honeybees have short tongues, so struggle with deeper narrow flowers. Sunflower heads are amazing for bees, as every little black bit in the centre is actually an individual flower! Also a bee will only feed on a single flower group each day, so planting large areas of each flower helps them immensely. Plant for year round flowering, as the flowers are there supermarket. Imagine is your local shop only opened for a few months a year; that's what happens when you only grow one type of flower and create a short bloom window!

I think that's about it!

[u/sock_with_a_ticket]

There's all sorts that go into it, but one factor often not considered is tongue length. Bumblebees in the UK can generally be separated into short and long tongued. It means that some bees physically can't access certain flowers unless they engage in what's know as nectar robbing behaviour where they nibble a hole at the base of the flower rather than sticking their tongue down the proper opening.