This is the journal of my endeavours to grow a range of fruit, veg and flowers from seed, grow organically, and my attempts to create a personal paradise with 1/2 acre of maintained gardens and 1/2 acre wild meadows. Northern Ireland's average daily high temperatures are 18 °C (64 °F) in July and 6 °C (43 °F) in January. Soil type: Clay

Wednesday, 2 April 2014

What colour flowers do bees prefer?

It's great to see bees buzzing around the garden! I have pansies at the back door and I've seen a giant bee that looks to be working really hard!

Last August I attended a four-hour bumblebee identification course! Quite a long day but part of it involved going outside and catching bees and insects (I enjoyed trying to photograph them!). 

 More on my bee course and photos can be seen by clicking here.
I haven't managed to capture any good photos of bees this year (yet), so these photos are from last April. I've seen some excellent articles and blog posts on the importance of bee friendly gardens and why we shouldn't use chemicals or pesticides in the garden  (so I'll not duplicate).
What colour flowers do bees prefer? From my Bumblebee course it's: blue-green, violet and ultraviolet. I always assumed it would be yellow!

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.
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12 comments:

  1. Janneke 2 April 2014 at 13:41

    There are already lots of bumblebees in the garden, more than ever in spring I think. I suppose it is due to the warm and sunny weather this year.

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  2. --Ana--2 April 2014 at 14:08

    I haven't noticed that bees here prefer any color. They visit every flower they see. :)

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  3. Anonymous2 April 2014 at 15:55

    The bumblebees loved the orange flowers of nasturcium, and sunflowers last year :)

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  4. Endah Murniyati2 April 2014 at 20:27

    Amazing shots! I like both of the bee and flowers.

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  5. Jo@awholeplotoflove3 April 2014 at 01:20

    I think the bees that visit my garden try all of my flowers most of them anyway. I've seen quite a few bumblebees so far this year.

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  6. Sue Garrett3 April 2014 at 02:20

    All complicated by the fact that they see colours so differently form us and see markings invisible to us too

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  7. elaine 3 April 2014 at 07:27

    I would have thought it was yellow too but they do seem to visit most plants especially in spring when they have to be grateful for what they can get.

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  8. Wendy4 April 2014 at 03:26

    I don't know as much about bumblebees as I do honeybees but honeybees do love blue. They go to flowers for different reasons, of course - at the moment a favourite flower here is the (yellow) oilseed rape. Your ID course sounds fascinating.

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  9. ann4 April 2014 at 06:28

    Still a bit chilly here for the bees. Me too. I would think yellow.

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  10. Angie4 April 2014 at 10:18

    What a useful course Kelli - I always thought they preferred yellow too. So thanks for attending and letting me know other wise ;)

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  11. Casa Mariposa5 April 2014 at 07:21

    That's really interesting. I wonder if that's true of all bees. I haven't seen a single bee here yet. It would be fascinating to see my garden from the perspective of a pollinator.

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  12. Egretta Wells blog6 April 2014 at 12:31

    Hi Kelli, we have lots of bees in the garden, both honeybees and bumblebees. I would have thought yellow was their favorite, too, but actually they do seem to love the purple-violet blooms on the Mexican heather. My broccoli is beginning to flower now, though, and they are working quite hard on it.

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