How Flowers Use Their Pollen to Attract Bees

Pollination

• Flowers reproduce by producing pollen and using bees, other insects, other animals or natural factors, such as wind, to spread the pollen to other nearby flowers. Plants that rely on bees and other insects to collect the pollen and spread it to other flowers, like clover, dandelions, goldenrod, fruit trees and milkweed, have typically developed bright colors and strong aromas in order to more effectively attract the bees to them. But this explanation still leaves the question of why bees are attracted to pollen in the first place.

Pollen and Bees

• There are many different insects that pollinate flowers, including flies, bats and other insects, but bees are "the most effective pollinators in the world," according to Berkley University's guide to creating a bee-friendly garden. Bees' attraction to pollen is not merely in service of the flower's reproductive needs, but rather a single component in a complex, mutual and symbiotic relationship between flowers and bees. Bees use both pollen and nectar produced by flowers as a food source. Worker bees collect pollen and nectar, store it inside the beehive and convert it to honey to feed young bee larvae until they pupate into adult form.

Flower Selection

• To see this remarkable symbiotic system at work, choose flowers that produce plenty of pollen and nectar. Depending on where you live, tropical flowers usually produce more pollen, but they can also be difficult to grow and will not support the bee's entire lifecycle. Instead, choose native plants that produce the most pollen that you can find in your area.

Other Tips for a Bee Friendly Garden

• In order to attract as many bees to your garden as is possible, limit the use of chemical pesticides as these chemicals have a bad tendency to kill beneficial insects like bees when they are used to kill pest insects. Create bee nesting sites using scrap wood or other common household materials. If someone in your home is allergic to bees, you should of course exercise caution in letting them outside, but keep in mind that bees only sting as a defensive maneuver and in response to substantial provocation.