Today, as I was on holiday, my wife and I went for a walk along the canal looking for wild flowers. Apart from the fraught business of having to dodge the cyclists it was lovely. In Edinburgh you're never too far from some country-in-the-city.
There's a good mix of wild flowers along the canal, with a few garden escapees. We were interested in the plants that were attracting bees. For the last couple of years my wife has been a wee bit obsessed about luring bees into our garden. She's doing well so far—the garden is positively hoaching with them.
There were a couple of stand-out plants, bee-wise; a honeysuckle that we tentitively identified as L. Tatarica and the Hawthorn. They were covered in bumblers, there were even some honey bees.
When we got back home we pottered around the garden for a while, watching the bees at work. The phlox and the foxgloves were getting most of the custom, but the kale, that had self-seeded, and the Californian poppies were getting visitors too.
Apparently we have a problem—plants for autumn. So, when we went in, [thanks to Jan] we perused the online version of Howes' flowers for bees book. I thought that we might be all right, we have a lot of Michaelmas Daisies. My wife disagrees and is sorting seed as I type. She'll be right.
From a couple of years of watching bees I see my wife's point: you need to provide variation. Different bees do different things, at different times, and the bee book opened my mind as to the maybe-why.
Today I saw a carder working a lupin, then a hortorum working a foxglove. Different bees, different strokes.
We need more bee flowers. The amount? Many.