Most popular bumblebee flowers in late July
The garden centre is the obvious place to compare the attractions of different garden flowers. And, I discover, a good place to observe the ecology of bumblebees.
The main bumblebees on view today were white tailed: B terrestris and B lucorum
The most popular flowers by a mile were all colours and varieties of Salvia:
But if you look closely you can see that the bees are cheating the flowers by robbing nectar through a hole in the calyx [sepals] or corolla [tubular petals]
In the photos, nearly every flower has been broken into.
The next most popular flowers were Echinacea
And after that: Penstemon, Veronica, Alstomeria, Cirsium, Helenium, Physostegia
and the Common Carders favoured Nepeta
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