No bees visit Monarda 'Jacob Cline'

[Tyra Trevellyn]

Does anyone here grow Monarda 'Jacob Cline'? This is the only variety I've ever experienced that attracts absolutely NO bees or butterflies....never in the three years I've grown it. (It does, however, attract Ruby-throated Hummingbirds.) This is a beautiful plant, very PM resistant, with huge deep red flowers and a long bloom season. I'm really curious about the lack of insect pollinators (except some moth, it seems, that lays eggs so its larvae can mutilate the blooms....), since bee balm is normally a major attractant. And yes, I've got lots of bees of many species.

Best, Tyra nNJ usa z7

[paghat]

How odd. I have a patch of Jacob Kline and there are usually bees on the big red flowers, but the same general strip of sun-garden also has a purple beebalm, plus penstemons, globe thistles, campanulas, climbing honeysuckles, &c., so it's not like Jacob Kline has to do it all alone, so I don't know what would happen otherwise.

-paghat the ratgirl

[Tyra Trevellyn]

Thanks for the info, 'cause I thought perhaps it was the variety itself (although I've been reading everything I can about it and nothing indicates a reason for bee-lessness). Nope, the plants are surrounded by bee-heavy Veronica, Shasta daisies, Rudbeckias, etc. Since this huge clump began for me as one four-inch pot, perhaps there was something about the original plant, if something like that is possible.

Best, Tyra nNJ usa z7

[Beecrofter]

In some long tubular flowers of which Monarda is certainly one, bees do not have long enough tongues to reach the nectar and must either wait until another insect has cut into the flower from the side or make the cut themselves.

[flicker]

Interesting. I used to grow a red-flowered monarda right alongside one of the purple ones. The purple one was overrun with bumblebees, the red one, just as you describe, untouched. I don't recall the flower size to be different on the two plants. I assume it was a color issue; bumblebees always seemed more attracted to the purples in my garden.

bianca zone 6-7 Long Island

[Beecrofter]

Bees vision extends up into the ultraviolet spectrum but on the low end it stops short and they percieve no difference between red and black. Many flowers reflect interesting patterns that we cannot percieve in the UV spectrum and bees see these well. On a cloudy day bees fix the angle of the sun by the polarization of UV light filtering through the clouds. Of course they have had many more millions of years to evolve than us and can do more with less:)

[paghat]

butterflies....never in

I've seen many UV pics of flowers & what seemed to be generally true is that what bees & moths see may be a lot brighter & gaudier than what we see, or may be so dark as to be practically invisible to them though very colorful to us. The flowers that look gaudiest under UV are probably attempting to appeal to multiple pollinators, while those which are simple-looking in the UV range are more apt to have a specialist pollinator & aren't as eager to be mucked with by the wrong insect. Some few under UV even have glowy parts that look like insects, & a perfume that attracts pollinators eager to mate rather than gather food, & perform pollination while trying to Get It On with the flower's sex organs.

I was under the impression that bees (large ones at least, including honeybees) aren't all that fussy & see pretty much the full range of flower colors as equally significant. Not so? Any pattern or color at any spectrum honeybees would either not see at all or intentionally ignore?

-paghat the ratgirl

[Beecrofter]

Right now the bees are finishing the last of the sumac, they will be moving on to goldenrod and japanese knotweed. I haven't been in the wet areas to see if Clethra is still blooming. Honeybees go for the best nectar and pollen sources they can find and tend to work those blossoms until they run out. They have an incredibly sensitive sense of smell.

Across the sound from Lawn Guy Land After a zone 5 winter they tell us we might be zone 7 Yeah right

[paghat]

This thread made me look most closely at my "Jacob Kline" patch & my equally red "Raspberry Wine" patch, & there's no question about it, the bees are all over them. That bees bypass bright red monardas in other peoples' gardens still quite amazes me. I liked both the theory that the very-slender tubes were difficult for the bees to reach into, or that either the red or whatever color they are under UV color doesn't attract them, except bees are fully attracted to mine. I watched a bumblebee scurring eagerly from one tube to the next, sticking its little head underneath the lip of the tube, I pushing straight down into the tube apparently rewarded by the push. I did notice, however, that more bees (& more kinds of bees) were visiting the "Ace of Spades" scabiosa growing amidst the "Raspberry Wine" monarda.

-paghat the ratgirl