Kitchen Garden Forum

If you want to attract and help bumblebees, it seems to help if you grow stripy flowers

http://www.jic.ac.uk/corporate/media-an ... lights.htm

Hi Alan, I read that too. They don't mention any comparison with yellow or blue flowers. I wonder if the colour of the stripes makes a difference too, or whether any colour flower with contrasting stripes would attract them? Or even a flower with contrasting spots on the throat like foxgloves.

Hello Alan
Surely there is nothing new in this at all. When I was at little school (a very, very long time ago) I remember our 'nature' teacher telling us about these stripes and patterns on flowers. She described them as 'honey guides' to show the bees where to go.

John

The bumble bees love nasturtium flowers which are yellow and orange, with landing strips, and foxgloves which are purple with landing strips, so they don't seem fussy regarding colour. Saw a painted lady and a dragonfly yesterday, along with a few bumble bees, and quite a few ladybirds still around too.

And to complicate matters bees see ultra violet too so colours look different to them

Apparently bees are blind to red, but butterflies are attracted to red.
I think the depth of flowers affects their choice as much as colour, honeybees have much shorter tongues than bumblebees and are unable to work flowers with very deep corollas, e.g. honeysuckle. Butterflies have extremely long tongues and are able to reach nectar deep down in the flower. Of course single flowers are preferable, no way they can penetrate the modern multi petalled varieties. Will plant some more crocus, good early pollen plants for when the queens emerge next year.

Different species of honeybees have differing lengths of tongues as do bumble bees some can browse tubular flowers and others not which is why sometimes bean flowers have been nipped at the base. Short tongued bees have found that this way they can access nectar

Very observant of you Gallotments One good pollinator for beans is the
endangered species of ruderal bee, on my post about that it was pictured on a bean flower.

Hi NB,
You say that apparently bees are blind to the colour red but the question is do they see the same colours as we see them.
I give an example where I perceive red and they apparently do see red as well, which is on my runner beans.
I am interested to find out your source of information regarding bee's colour perception?
Perhaps I have misunderstood your posting.
JB.

Morning Johnboy

Perhaps the word see should be "see". It would be hard to prove that you "see" what and how I "see" - even before taking red-green colour blindness into account.

Bees obviously "see" very differently from humans and ultraviolet is an important "colour" for them. In the link below it shows that bees "see" red as black, i.e. no light, but they do "see" Uv patterns in red flowers.
The stripes referred to in my original post are presumably the pollen paths we can see - but many (to us) non-striped flowers have Uv "landing stripes".

Here's the link - do have a browse through the photo gallery linked at the right side of the table:

http://westmtnapiary.com/Bees_and_color.html

I've always wondered whether we all (humans) see colours in the same way. It could explain why some people find some colours awful that others thingk are wonderful and why some people's colour co-ordination looks awful!

It's not only insects but many mammals that see colours differently. For instance dogs see only part of the colour range that we see but can distinguish closely related greys easier than we can probably why they see better than we do in the dark!

Just another thought - if bees can't see red why do ruby tailed bees have a reddish rump? Isn't colour how insects recognise their own species?

We have probably all evolved to see what we need to see best. nature is so subtle and intelligent, gives us things to wonder about !

Nature's Babe wrote: nature is so subtle and intelligent, gives us things to wonder about !

Oh dear NB! There you go driving me into thread drift!

I wonder what makes you think nature is "intelligent".

As far as I understand it, nature is full of wonder (to our minds) and pitiless cruelty. What it is not is "intelligent". Having no "mind" how could it be?

The more you understand about the blindness of evolution, the more wonderful it appears.

Suggested reading for the long nights ahead:

Alan, in answer to your question the fibonnacci numbers and golden mean found throughout nature and the univere, speaks to me of intelligence and not just chance, and yes, some of it seems cruel, but much is beautiful without contrast it would not be easy to appreciate the wonders. Be assured I have no intention of driving you Don't blame me for you going off thread, your choice.

Nature's Babe wrote:Alan, in answer to your question the fibonnacci numbers and golden mean found throughout nature and the univere, speaks to me of intelligence and not just chance,

And it speaks to me of the laws of physics

Oh, and you really should give Prof Dawkins a try.