Ask a Bumble Bee: What Flowers Do Bumble Bees Prefer?

I often get asked what people can plant for bees. I can give good general answers to those questions, because we have a good idea of what types of flowers tend to be attractive to bees in general. We can then use that information along with personal observations made by ourselves and others to fairly easy determine what we can plant in a given area for bees in general.

However, we still have a lot to learn when it comes to knowing what types of flowers certain types of bees prefer or what we can plant for specific types of bees. This is especially true when it comes to our native bees. Ask a Bumble Bee, is a new community science, or citizen science, project that is striving to answer some of those questions specifically for bumble bees. Finding out what types of flowers bumble bees prefer and what we can plant for them is especially important, because many species of bumble bees appear to be declining in number.

In this episode of the Backyard Ecology podcast, we talk with Jenan El-Hifnawi. Jenan is the Project Coordinator for Ask a Bumble Bee. Jenan joins us to talk about the project, the types of questions it hopes to answer, and how anyone who is interested can help out by observing bumble bees on flowers. Along the way we also share some of our own stories and experiences.

Links

• Ask a Bumble Bee website: https://u.osu.edu/askabumble/
• Jenan’s email: bumblebeecount@gmail.com
• Related Backyard Ecology episodes:
  • Are Larger Patch Sizes Better When Planting for Pollinators?: https://www.backyardecology.net/are-larger-patch-sizes-better-when-planting-for-pollinators/
  • Factors that Make Pollinator Gardens More Attractive to Pollinators: https://www.backyardecology.net/factors-that-make-pollinator-gardens-more-attractive-to-pollinators/
  • Wasps: Victims of an Often Undeserved Reputation: https://www.backyardecology.net/wasps-victims-of-an-often-undeserved-reputation/
  • Checking In After 50 Episodes of the Backyard Ecology Podcast: https://www.backyardecology.net/checking-in-after-50-episodes-of-the-backyard-ecology-podcast/
• Backyard Ecology’s website: https://backyardecology.net
• Backyard Ecology blog: https://www.backyardecology.net/blog/
• Backyard Ecology’s Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/backyardecology
• Subscribe to Backyard Ecology emails: https://www.backyardecology.net/subscribe/
• My email: shannon@backyardecology.net

Episode image:

• Bumble bee on purple coneflower
• Photo credit: USDA, public domain