As I was researching plants to put in our yard, one of my deciding factors was if they'd be good plants for pollinators (bees and butterflies). I am a big fan of bees since they give us so much and only ask for a little bit of pollen and nectar. Some people might have a hatred for bees since they will fly around your open can of pop on a summer day and can sometimes ruin a picnic. Those "bees" are actually yellow jacket wasps and not bees at all!
Here are some facts about bees:
-There are 1,200 native pollinating bees in North America
-A bee traveling at a top speed of 15 mph will visit as many as 100 flowers before returning to it’s hive.
-Bee pollination accounts for 1 out of every 3 bites of food.
-Most bee species are solitary. A female lays eggs and provisions her own nest.
-Only the bees that live in a colony or hive (“social bees,” i.e., honey bees and bumble bees) are likely to sting, because they have a colony to defend
-Of the forty-five species of bumble bees in the U.S., only about four have a feisty nature.
-When foraging away from the nest, no bee is looking for conflict and will only sting as a last resort–perhaps as a result of being swatted or squashed, or accidentally being caught in someone’s clothes.
If you haven't fallen asleep after reading those facts, then here is your reward! Some of the late August blooming plants in our yard (with one of their pollinators) are:
Blue vervain with skipper
Sneezeweed with rusty-patched bumble bee
Cup plant with European honeybee (not native, but these are the ones that make the honey we eat)
Bottle gentians are pollinated exclusively by large bumblebees due to the difficulty of opening the top of the flower to get to the pollen inside
and finally, here is my favorite prairie flower, rough blazing star
