erydumaenhir:

mossofthewoodsjewelry:

It’s so funny to see bumblebee behavior, how they basically have to learn what is and is not a flower through example.

For months the bumblebees were totally ignoring my garden, despite an ample supply of delicious Catnip, Lavender, and other assorted goods. Then, I put in the Russian Sage, a tall stalk of ample amounts of purple flowers, that can be seen in my garden from the hillside, and suddenly, a few tentatively showed up to that, then they realized the Hyssop next to it also had nectar, then the Lavender, which they had so quickly snubbed before, then the Borage flowers quickly became their favorite, which last year saw no bee activity at all, etc.

I guess what I’m saying is, if you’re trying to attract bees, consider putting in the botanical equivalent of a runway flag for your garden and see what happens.

I have never in my life even thought to think about how bees figure out flowers have nectar because I always just kinda thought that the explanation I was given (UV TRIPPY FLOWERS RUNWAYS TO THE NECTAR WOOOO, except not that excited and with more thought) satisfied me. I didn’t think about them not recognizing other weird thing shapes as foodsources. I’ve never stopped to think about what a non-native flower would look to native pollinators that it didn’t co-evolve with.

… fuck.