flowers for bees for beans

[tomatoada]

Can anyone tell me which flowers to grow near my beans on my allotment?  I have only grown beans in a back garden before and there were plenty of flowers, annuals and shrubs to attract the bees.  I read somewhere that tagetes or marigolds help pollination. 

[tomatoada]

[redimp]

I am going to grow french and pot marigolds, nasturtian and I am going to plant bare areas with red clover to encourage the rarer but more useful long tongued bumble bees.

[thistle]

I've read that sweet peas are a good choice to grow near runner beans to help attract bees.  But if your site is anything like mine, there are plenty of plots with flowers in the summer (on the various veg everyone grows and wild flowers too, aka as weeds ;)) and pollination has not been a problem.  Although thinking about it my site is in a rural location with lots of insects and wildlife around so maybe I'm just lucky ?

[philcooper]

Sweet peas work very well for runner beans but for short peas, with a short life on the plot, try attarctants such as borage, lavender, lupin or marjoram at the end of the row

Or plant a buddleia bush nearby - they grow at a high rate and will be covered in flower by the summer.

Phacelia grows at a high rateon any bit of spare ground, attracts bees and butterflies, smoothers weeds and can be dug in as green manure when you need the ground.

Phil

[aquilegia]

All sorts of things - fennel-type flowers are great for attracting hover flies (whose young also kill slugs, for an added bonus). Bees really love lavendar. And lemon balm is supposed to be another good one.

I have a buddleia in the corner of my veg patch which does the job.

[Mrs Ava]

Sweet peas with the beans and peas and I have some sweetwilliams.  Will also have my sunflowers going in.  We are surrounded by hedgerows full of wildroses, plums, apples and brambles and other plot holders grow a few flowers for cutting so there are always plenty of buzzy things around, sometimes tooo many after I got stung last year!

[Kerry]

agree with all the above, plus 'poached egg plants'-limanthes douglasii. (annual)

[GardnerJ]

the green manures sound like a great idea, i might try that one!
Jemma

[luath]

Borage is certainly one pf the best bee plants you can grow.  It's now easy to get hold of a packet of mixed ones - blue and white flowers in one packet, whihc are very pretty, althogh teh bees prefer the blue.  Leave them to self- seed, which they will with a vengeance!  Another one for the bees is either the cardoon or the globe artichoke with their great big blue thistle-like heads - mine are always covered in bees.

[diver]

Ive got french marigolds in pots...well I will have...so that I can move them round, nastursiums near the little pond and sweet peas in with the runner  beans...that is what the 'old hands' told me to do

[Derek]

Be careful with the poached egg plants

I put in a few plants last year and they multiplied BIG TIME.. everywhere

Derek

[Jesse]

Yes, Borage is my favorite to attract bees, it's an easy plant to grow and will easily self seed each year. The bees love it.

[john_miller]

There is a misunderstanding of how bees work in this question that I only became aware of when my apiarist pointed out that I was also misunderstanding how bees pollinate.
During their short lives individual honey bees will only work with one specie of flower. This one specie will be the one they first identify as providing the most food value for the least effort during their initial foraging trips (this also ensures that cross pollination between plants of the same species occurs as random movement by bees would result in increased chances of pollen being distributed among many different plant species). Providing alternate sources of nectar may backfire if the selected plants are more desireable to honey bees and could result in decreased pollination, especially if there are not enough bees around to fully harvest the higher nectar plants. The actual attractiveness of individual species to bees can be very unexpected. When it was first introduced overwintered plantings of oil seed rape growing near orchards  resulted in disasterous pollination in apples as the rape was the preferred food source for the honey bees due to it's higher sugar content. This site, on page 5, points out two other problem crops, although the list is not exhaustive as not enough research has been done:
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:PeTT8xJD48AJ:statistics.defra.gov.uk/esg/evaluation/beehealth/annex7.pdf++runner+bean+pollination&hl=en .
In that article (page 9-10) it is also pointed out that bumblebees are responsible for 30% of runner bean pollination but honey bees account for 20%. This article:
http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profiles0800/runner_beans.asp mentions that the nectar of runner beans is very low in sugar with the result that pollination will increases after July but only when alternatives decline. If annuals are planted then, given their typical flowering season, alternatives are being provided when runner beans least need it. The exceptions to this would be the sweet peas EJ mentions or the clover redclanger mentions as they will attract bumble- or other large bees which count as promiscuous pollinators. With the reputation of Buddelia and phacelia as being bee magnets, and given their flowering season (my brand new buddelia flowered from July to October last year)  they should be avoided unless they can be grown to avoid simultaeneous flowering with beans.

[gavin]

During their short lives individual honey bees will only work with one specie of flower.

Of course, of course!!!!! :) :) :)  (and I go and quietly bang head on wall :o ).  That makes sense - and fits with the little I know of beekeeping.

Thank you for that, John - that answers a few little questions that were niggling at me.

All best - Gavin

[john_miller]

Would you mind sharing Gavin? I wouldn't say that my post sums up my entire knowledge of bee keeping (although it does) but I only correlated some pieces of information while I was reading the pages I cited!

[tomatoada]

Thanks for all the replies.  Still taking all the info. in.   I think we should all grow only one vegetable to do best..  Erh is that right ??

[redimp]

There is a misunderstanding of how bees work in this question ....  During their short lives individual honey bees will only work with one specie of flower... it is also pointed out that bumblebees are responsible for 30% of runner bean pollination but honey bees account for 20%.

I think this is why growing red clover as a green manure is good because honey bees cannot access the nectar (tongues too short) and only long tongued varities of bumble bee can.  You attract lopts of these and because they do not discriminate, they will pollinate other plants in the garden.

Correct me if I am way off the mark  :-\

[patricil1508]

Hi John, found your reply fascinating and informative, so may I please tap your knowledge on pollinating PEAS.

Have read that these are "self-pollinating" (not quite sure what that entails).

We like to cover our overwinter peas with mesh to provide a better climate and shelter from our north sea winds.  We always remove the covers when flowers appear on peas to enable pollination - BUT - is this necessary? or does "self-pollinating" mean that no insects are rquired and that the peas can do their own pollinating with the aid of the wind etc?
The covers also keep out most insects which helps with the pea moth later in the season.  Needless to say, the North Sea winds etc. don't stop  blowing because the flowers have appeared and neither do the late frosts.

We always have a super crop of overwinter peas but I would sleep easier if the covers were kept on.

[john_miller]

Patricil: Self pollinating means that each individual flower contains both sex organs arranged in such a way that foraging insects will probably cause the flower to fertilise itself with it's own pollen and that no genetic traits exist to prevent this (this happens with self sterile plants). Pollen vectors are required with every plant whose evolution has not come to a .
Redclanger: Exactly right.
Muhare: Not quite. Pollination will still occur, what I hope I am saying is just don't provide unnecessary or more desireable  alternatives- honeybees are dedicated pollinators, bumblebees move across different species. If honey- and bumblebees pollinate 50% of runner bean flowers it does mean that other foragers are responsible for the remaining 50%.

[patricil1508]

Oops John -

Would you kindly re-post reply - its got itself muddled right at the bit I needed to read - Do I leave the covers on or take them off?

Patricil