Which plant in your garden attracted the most bees today?

[lilylove]

Aquilegia is buzzing with activity!!

[artdemole]

Being bypassed by bees.Blossom being blown by breeze.But just spotted 1 on red heutchara and two on blue flower of rosemary.Not warm today.

[Jim Ford]

Originally Posted by Susie

Snapdragons are very good for big bumbles because they need quite a lot of strength to force the "jaws" of the dragon open to get to the pollen.

Sometimes I can't resist gently holding a snapdragon flower closed when it's got a bumble bee inside. When the bee finds it can't get out it 'protests' loudly and when I let it out after a second or so, it's usually covered with pollen such that it would probably sneeze if it could!

Also, if you gently prod a bumble bee with your finger when it's on a flower, it will often try to shove you away with one of its legs, as if to say 'geroff, I was here first!'.

The cotoneasters in our garden are very attractive to bees. Difficult to see why, they've not got much in the way of big flashy flowers and don't smell much.

Jim

[Suzybrook]

not a plant, but lots of bees on our alder buckthorn flowers, you can hear a real buzzin going on when you stand underneath it

[aeshna5]

Originally Posted by Suzybrook

not a plant, but lots of bees on our alder buckthorn flowers, you can hear a real buzzin going on when you stand underneath it

Surely Alder Buckthorn is a plant!! My one attracts plenty of Bombus pratorum.

[Suzybrook]

mines grown up to be a tree

[Jennie]

Deutsia, Pittosporum, Aquilegia, in order of preferance. I have a Weigela but I didn't see any flying insects on it at all! Maybe because its a varigated variety?

[Cheryl]

I have a pink hardy geranium - lots of them growing under a hedge - I don't know which it is precisely but the bees love it

[paulinemiller10]

My bumbles are on cotoneaster this month, and would have been on fuschia and ceanothus, both lost to frost, I replaced the ceonothus two days ago and bumbles are all over it, I also bought some poppies that were covered in bumbles in the garden centre, one pot was £6, and 3 for £12, so bought 3, I have seen the odd bumble on them in my garden, but not a lot of interest so far.
I wonder if its passed down in their genes to look for the same plants as their parents visited the year before, I ve watched baby bumbles buzzing around my back door among the dead wood of the fuschia shrubs which would have been covered in flowers last year. Pauline.

[Susie]

In addition the previous plants I mentioned catmint (nepeta, six hills giant) is doing particularly well today and so is the comfrey.

I'm not so sure about the genes, but if ever there are less bees in my garden than usual I look at the neighbours gardens to see what is flowering there. When the big laurel hedge in a neighbour's garden is in bloom all the bees are there.