For More Informationįor more information about bees, building bee habitat, or bee gardens visit the following links: Photos courtesy of Apalachicola National Forest. The bee can more rapidly collect nectar and the flower is more effectively pollinated. This adaptation benefits both the flower and the bee. This guide helps a bee quickly locate the flower's center. The contrasting ultraviolet pattern called a nectar guide. However, bees can detect ultraviolet light. This region appears invisible to humans because our visual spectrum does not extend into the ultraviolet. Many of the flowers pollinated by bees have a region of low ultraviolet reflectance near the center of each petal. Other bee species or other insects that are too small or too large are excluded. Only bees of the right size and weight can trigger the flower to open.

Snapdragon flowers have sturdy, irregular shaped flowers with landing platform. Flowers are often tubular with nectar at base of tubeĪn example of a bee-pollinated flower is a snapdragon or Penstemon (pictured right).Often bilaterally symmetrical (one side of the flower is a mirror image of the other).Sweetly aromatic or have a minty fragrance.Brightly colored with petals that are usually blue or yellow or a mixture of these (bees cannot see red).The flowers that are visited by bees are typically: The majority of bees are solitary, but a few, like sweat bees, bumblebees, and honeybees, are social, living in colonies that consist of a queen, her worker bee daughters and a few males, the drones. Most bees excavate their nest tunnels in sunny patches of bare ground, while others seek out abandoned beetle burrows in dead tree trunks or branches.

Leafcutter bees use a 'wrapper' of leaves, resin and sand.Nesting Habitatīee nesting habits vary greatly. Many bees need water in addition to nectar. Bees need these resources for themselves and their progeny. Bees need key resources such as pollen and nectar from a variety of flowers. Energy NeedsĪll bees have very high-energy needs that must be met for their survival. These flower-seeking pollen magnets purposefully visit flowers to collect pollen and nectar for food for themselves and their young. Familiar bees visiting garden flowers are the colorful, fuzzy, yellow-and-black striped bumblebees, metallic-green sweat bees, squash bees, and imported honeybee.

In the United States, there are over 4,000 species of native bees.

Brochure on bee pollen benefits