Celebrating Insect Diversity Week: Bees!

   Here's a collection of the 5 most common bees from our yard over the past month, and their favorite flowers for pollen and nectar. It's so important to provide a lot of different of plants to suit each bees needs. Some bees have short tongues and prefer the smaller flowers, like coreopsis and nepeta. Others like the Golden Northern Bumblebee have long tongues so they can feed from plants with longer flower tubes, like the monardas and some agastache. Don't forget to also provide plants with staggered bloom times, so you always have a few things blooming all season long.

Remember...No Bees = No Food

Want to learn more about why bees are so important and what you can do to help? Check out these websites: Pollinator Partnership & Xerces Society.

 Agapostemon Sweat Bee on Sunflower

   Golden Northern Bumblebee aka Yellow Bumblebee (Bombus fervidus) on Spotted Knapweed

 Common Eastern Bumblebee (Bombus impatiens) on Gaillardia "Oranges & Lemons"

 Eastern Carpenter Bee (Xylocopa virginica) on Monarda "Raspberry Wine"

Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) on Agastache "Blue Blazes"

*click on photos to enlarge