MsCowpea wrote: ↑Fri Jan 10, 2020 4:04 pm I will plant anything I see at the nursery with bees on it. I love butterflies but give me a bee any day. I will try the gaillardia.

I particularly like bumblebees but Ive NEVER seen one where I live . Been here 40 years. I did see one about 15 years ago in a public garden in Palm Beach. Next county over.

Bower what kind of camera do you use to get such a great beetle shot? Karen/Dante , your camera is great as well.

Hey Elaine, are you able to grow Lavender in your region. (Forgive my ignorance, am not very familiar with the climate in the different parts of the US) Bees absolutely love them too. I will have to look for pics… they are everywhere in my laptop from my Samsung phones (S4/S5/S7/S9) and 2 other old digital cameras.

We have a huge Lavender bush right in front of our kitchen door and bees never miss them. Oh, as well as Catmint -Napeta (our cats too!) and Borage and Comfrey of course. It appears that bees are also highly drawn to purple-blue flowers.

I can only think that the lack of certain bees or other insects are the existence of pesticides, destruction of habitat etc... the usual cause of human intervention… sighs...

I cant grow lavender in S Fla. nor was comfrey successful
Funny you should mention blue/purple flowers. They are my favorite. I love blue salvia.
I saw a lot of bees around Mexican Heather at the nursery—not crazy about MH but I do plant it here and there as bees like it.
I would love a camera that takes macro shots of bugs but I don’t want to get into the fancy cameras and lenses.

MsCowpea wrote: ↑Sat Jan 11, 2020 3:09 pm
I would love a camera that takes macro shots of bugs but I don’t want to get into the fancy cameras and lenses.

Get out and try it with whatever you have. My daughter in law gets great shots with her pocket digital camera, nothing fancy. I like the shots I get with my more expensive camera but I don't use any fancy settings or lenses.
What it takes though is some patience. Sometimes insects just won't co operate!

MsCowpea wrote: ↑Sat Jan 11, 2020 3:09 pm I cant grow lavender in S Fla. nor was comfrey successful
Funny you should mention blue/purple flowers. They are my favorite. I love blue salvia.
I saw a lot of bees around Mexican Heather at the nursery—not crazy about MH but I do plant it here and there as bees like it.
I would love a camera that takes macro shots of bugs but I don’t want to get into the fancy cameras and lenses.

Yeah, the Blue Salvia blooms like forever. I planted some in our garden too. Sorry if I might be veering off course from the actual topic. Just wanted to share some of the flowers that were grown and attracted loads of insects, hoverflies, bees, etc. Here are some of the other flowers that were successful in attracting these insects. And Elaine, no need any fanciful gadgets. I usually only grab my Smartphone. Oh the white flowers of blueberries are also another bee magnet Seen a huge bee land on the poppy - grown from seed as well.
grown from seed

Hoverflies - we have hundreds of these on a sunny day in the garden. Bee/wasp mimics are the hardest thing to identify and not easy to get pics of either. Apparently the short "not elbowed" antennae are key to ID a fly, as also two wings instead of four. But it's not easy to tell how many wings. Antennae can be hard to see too. I have a bunch of pics labeled 'bee' but some are certainly flies with stubby little antennae. OTOH check out the pics of hoverfly vs halictid bee here at naturemuseum.org, how similar they are! Great pic of the halictid with long antennae showing. But bees don't always have conspicuous antennae either.
https://www.naturemuseum.org/the-museum ... our-garden

Bower wrote: ↑Wed Jan 08, 2020 3:22 pm THose bees are gorgeous. Love the orange fur!

They are aren´t they. I could watch them for hours ... especially when you see their ´legs´ full of yellow pollen. Like oversized calf leggings.

No doubt about it, bumblebees are the star of the bee show. They are adorable.

I found a better pic of a hoverfly - on rhubarb flowers.

Nice on rhubarb flower!
Here's a west coaster hover fly on its way to parsley flowers.

A realative on the zinnias

I haven't seen one near tomato flowers though.
Dahlias too


All the fliers seem to love parsley flowers.




even the hated fly, fly likes it




Yes, they really do pollinate flowers.
https://ucanr.edu/sites/PollenNation/Me ... ors/Flies/

There are two sizes of bumble bees in my yard. Only the little ones seem to occasionally like tomato flowers. Every year there seems to be one who checks out all the tomato blossoms while the rest of the little bees go elsewhere.



Great fruit set

LOVE all these photos!

PlainJane wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 7:38 pm LOVE all these photos!

Yes I agree. These pictures are wonderful. Thanks so much for sharing them.

Re: size of bumblebees. I was astounded to learn that the size of the bumble depends entirely on how well fed they are. The queens overwinter alone and in spring they have to forage for themselves and for the first brood of workers. That first generation are often tiny, especially cw the queens. They produce several generations of workers during the summer, and each is bigger than the last because there is more to eat, and finally at the end of summer, the queens that will overwinter are often really bumptious. They fed off the fat of the land, the fall flowering of so many things. Then in spring you get these colossal creatures out foraging for the new nest. Sometimes huge!
The queens need nectar as well as pollen, they were not at all interested in tomato flowers which have only pollen no nectar to offer. The nectar is to keep on truckin, while the pollen is to feed the little ones. So my tomato flowers were never touched until that first generation of workers appears. Someone gets 'pollen duty' then, and I have to say, they were very efficient visiting every newly opened blossom, day after day!

Interesting.
Ours, on the whole do not go for tomato pollen, just the single bee. Maybe there is something better out there. I have been watching so I might know when it is risky to save seeds with insects pollinating them. Early on there is nothing.