Have you ever seen a bee nourishing on a calendula blossom?

[Iris_Germany]

Hi, Flower ladies and men,

My direct neighbor is beekeeper. His bees come to my garden and storm my flowers and fruit trees with pleasure.
Only the calendula, they do not even look at.

As apparantly everyone wants to save the bees and the bumblebees nowadays, seed companies sell special bee-mixtures. And as far as I can see, there is always a lot of calendula seeds in the packages.

Have you ever seen bees on your calendulas? Me not. Never!

I have a lot of bee-flowers, and also wild bees and big bumblebees come to feast. But never on a calendula.

Why do they sell it when the bees do not like them? Or am I the only one where the bees do not want the calendula? I reckon that calendula does not produce any kind of nothworthy nectar and the firms put it in their bee-seeds as a filler. The seeds are big and take a lot of space.

Well, I do not know it really. It's only a suspicion I have.

I wanted to buy this here. It was on promotion for 19,95 some weeks ago. Then I saw that there are a lot of calendula in it and I backed off.

https://www.samenhaus.de/bienen-misc...ensen/a-538302

[Plot70]

I leave bolted onions and leeks in the veg beds.
I have a flower/wild border where only dock and bind weed it pulled for the most part I leave teasels and comfrey if it is not causing overcrowding.
Also I was given some cardoons and there flowers get crammed with bees.
Last year I had a white tailed bumble bees nest under the tool shed. They hummed under the floor and crammed themselves onto some bolted leeks on the plot next door.

[Iris_Germany]

I leave bolted onions and leeks in the veg beds.
I have a flower/wild border where only dock and bind weed it pulled for the most part I leave teasels and comfrey if it is not causing overcrowding.
Also I was given some cardoons and there flowers get crammed with bees.
Last year I had a white tailed bumble bees nest under the tool shed. They hummed under the floor and crammed themselves onto some bolted leeks on the plot next door.

That sounds great. I wish the bumblebees would feel so good in my garden to build a nest.

This year a Veronica which I bought last year had grown really big, and there, I can tell you, all kind of bees and bumblebees were fighting for the blossoms. They shoved each other away and behaved like bar brawlers. I could sit for hours and look at them. And in no way I can go near this Veronica. 5 seconds ago they fought each other, now I am the target!

[Plot70]

I never had a problem with last years bees. If I walked past the nest entrance to access the rain water they just bumped into my legs and pushed there way past. There was plenty of queens later in the season.

[Iris_Germany]

I never had a problem with last years bees. If I walked past the nest entrance to access the rain water they just bumped into my legs and pushed there way past. There was plenty of queens later in the season.

The bees of my neighbor get aggressive when he rummages around in his bee-waggon. Then they swarm out and look for victimes. I got stung a few times because I have been in their way. That was at the beginning when I did not know what to do. I go quickly away now when I hear them storming out of their houses, after 30 min. they are calm and I can go on with what I have done before.

Some neighbors fear the bees. Not me, I am happy that they do good work with my fruit trees and everything that needs to be pollinated.

[mothhawk]

My direct neighbor is beekeeper. His bees come to my garden and storm my flowers and fruit trees with pleasure.
Only the calendula, they do not even look at.
Have you ever seen bees on your calendulas? Me not. Never!

Honey bees see the world in infra-red vision. In infra red, I believe a lot of calendulas appear deep red. Honey bees cannot see red, which is why if you wish to look at a hive at night it is better to use a red shaded torch than a white light, which wakes them up and brings them out. So I guess that's why they don't bother with calendulas. they just don't see them very well.

[Mr Bones]

Hi Iris
We have calendula on our allotment and bees love them, maybe not as much as the Helichrysum, Zinnias and Limanthes etc. but they do always have both honey and bumble bees on them. Perhaps it's because they are an open centred calendula (variety Oopsy Daisy) as opposed to the double varieties.

[Iris_Germany]

Hi Iris
We have calendula on our allotment and bees love them, maybe not as much as the Helichrysum, Zinnias and Limanthes etc. but they do always have both honey and bumble bees on them. Perhaps it's because they are an open centred calendula (variety Oopsy Daisy) as opposed to the double varieties.

H E A V E N S!

What a proud arrangement of calendulas!!! Beautiful!

My calendulas are all open centred too. Maybe our bees have too many varieties of nectar sources nearby, so that they are spoiled and sneer at the calendulas? Could be the reason!

[Bren In Pots]

Hi Iris
We have calendula on our allotment and bees love them, maybe not as much as the Helichrysum, Zinnias and Limanthes etc. but they do always have both honey and bumble bees on them. Perhaps it's because they are an open centred calendula (variety Oopsy Daisy) as opposed to the double varieties.

MrBones that's a beautiful display

[Snoop Puss]

Mr B, that is glorious. What a marvellous plot. Now I've got more space, I'm going to put in more flowers, I shall try and remember this photo come the spring.

As for me, I didn't grow much broccoli this summer, but every plant made lots of secondary heads and I left some to flower. Bees seem fond of brassica flowers.

[Mr Bones]

A nice thing about those calendulas is they were only sown once and now come up each year from self set seeds

[Iris_Germany]

A nice thing about those calendulas is they were only sown once and now come up each year from self set seeds

Yes, they are so thankful bloomers. And they grow nearly everywhere. I love especially the lemon-yellow ones.
And they have the reputation to banish mices too, apart from their healing qualities. But the latter I haven't made any use of. I have some here and there in my garden, but as I said, never the bees come and drink nectar.

[coreopsis]

I must say I’ve never seen bees on calendulas.Igrow them because it’s one of the flowers of my childhood and I like a wee bunch of them on the table.
I have heaps of raspberries in the garden that are always buzzing when in flower, sunflowers,borage,nasturtium and cosmos. Next year hopefully I’ll have some hollyhocks.
I love snapdragons(antirrhinum) which bees also love. I like watching them entering the flower then the whole stalk shakes.

I was graced with bumble bee nest in my potato patch this year- wasn’t even aware they were there until the harvesting time came. They were at the bottom of large comfrey plant.When they were gone I looked up the nest- there was probably around 40 cells.

[Iris_Germany]

I must say I’ve never seen bees on calendulas.Igrow them because it’s one of the flowers of my childhood and I like a wee bunch of them on the table.
I have heaps of raspberries in the garden that are always buzzing when in flower, sunflowers,borage,nasturtium and cosmos. Next year hopefully I’ll have some hollyhocks.
I love snapdragons(antirrhinum) which bees also love. I like watching them entering the flower then the whole stalk shakes.

I was graced with bumble bee nest in my potato patch this year- wasn’t even aware they were there until the harvesting time came. They were at the bottom of large comfrey plant.When they were gone I looked up the nest- there was probably around 40 cells.

Hi!

I think they do not go there when they have other sources which produce more nectar. I have to look that up one day, I really reckon that calendula seeds are thrown in "bee-friendly" seed-packages to fill up the packages.

A bumblebees nest in a comfrey plant? That does not surprise me! I had several borage plants (they are a sort of comfrey too, I learned not long ago), and what can I say: One could get deaf, alone from standing there! Bees and bumblebees brawled like bad biker dudes to get the nectar. Shoving and pushing all over the place and a noise like a machine. They certainly like comfrey a lot.

And nice to hear that you like Hollyhocks too. I have them since the beginning I got my garden. Within that time they sadly get more and more high-maintenance. First of course is the rust. This I kill directly when they are small: Sulfur on top of the soil and the leaves. And after heavy rains. This went well for years. I had the most wonderful hollyhocks ever.

Then, this year: Shock!

They suddenly looked like poor, ragged, wretched creatures, ready to die!

I instantly examined them and what I found was disgusting: snout beetles. I have never seen them in my life. I could not believe it at first. After I frantically searched the internet, I found out, that this awful thing is new in Germany and especially in our region and that they put their eggs in mallow blossoms and eat everything up so that it cannot bloom. What a nasty development!

The bumblebees love the hollyhocks, and me too, so I have to find some pesticid which will not harm them. Maybe Neem. I have some here but did not use it until now. I tried it with all kind of "mild" stuff but the weevils did not blink an eye. Nothing helped: soaped water, cow bitter, nettle tea. They were not impressed.

Do you have this hollyhock-terror-weevil too where you live? All this years I have been so happy with my hollyhocks and then, bam!, these flower-assassins come and destroy it.

[Martin H]

Nice hollyhocks!
I don't suffer from weevils, but they get really badly attacked by rust. It doesn't kill them, just weakens the plants and makes them look untidy
I've a new garden this year, so I'm trying again in case they do better here.