Like us, bees also have their preferences, their flowers favorites. It's something that researchers recently discovered in a comprehensive study that could help increase the population of these important and effective pollinators.
As they comment, gardeners will be better able to choose the right plants that, without a doubt, are not the most expensive.
In the United Kingdom, at the University of Sussex they used the plants in a garden to determine which plants were most attractive to bees and which to other similar insects, such as bumblebees or sylphs. And they realized that both their favorite plants and those of others were just as beautiful and easy to care for as the others.
The study looked at 32 different plant species, some rich in nectar and highly perfumed, which were thought to be more attractive to insects, and others rich in pollen, which they believed would be more attractive to bees.
Although the reduced number of plants for the study did not show a great result, we could say that thanks to this study we will be able to better choose the flower plants that we want to put in the garden, especially if we want to help the bee population to recover. .
Thus, they realized that the marjoram plant, dahlias, lavender and wallflowers, were very attractive plants for bees. However, geraniums do not attract them as much.
The team of researchers put a number of lavender varieties to the test, and they found that the improved hybrids were highly attractive to insects, more so than the unhybridized varieties.
The data was collected in a very simple way: visiting the garden daily, for two summers.
More information - The spectacular Lavamda plant
Image - Live the parks