Sunflowers are tall, cherry-faced, thick-stemmed, large-headed gangly flowers that can easily be grown in full sun. Most gardeners love sunflowers because of their numerous benefits.
Sunflowers have a beneficial nitrogenous impact on the soil. They also lighten up a garden with their large, brightly colored flowers, and at the end of the season, they produce edible seeds that animals, birds, and human beings can feed on.
With their large bright flowers, you might be wondering whether sunflowers attract bees. Well, bees are loved pollinators that you will find on many flowering plants. If you are planning to add sunflowers to your yard, read on to find more about bees and sunflowers.
Do bees like sunflowers?
Sunflowers are flowering plants comprising several species with brightly colored petals surrounding numerous anthers that hold pollen grains.
Like most flowering plants, they attract several insects, among them Bees. Bees frequently visit sunflowers, where they feed on pollen grains.
Here are a few reasons why bees are attracted to sunflowers:
1. Sunflower bright color
All varieties of sunflowers produce colorful flowers, typically yellow, which bees can easily see when foraging. Because bees are naturally attracted to bright colors, they are most likely to land on sunflowers because they see the UV light reflection far in the sky.
2. Sweet-smelling scent
Sunflowers have a sweet scent that attracts bees and other insects that love sweet fragrances. Honey bees can quickly smell a sweet scent from a distance and fly to the source. If the scent is coming from the sunflowers in your garden, they will most likely land on them.
3. Nectar
This is a sweet, juicy, and sticky substance found at the bottom of the flower. Sunflowers have large heads filled with thousands of tiny flowers. There are several small petals at the center of the flowers with delicious sweet nectar, which bees collect and use to make honey.
The honey will protect bees from the extremely cold conditions in winter. Farmers can also harvest honey and consume it for its vast health benefits.
4. Pollen grains
There are thousands of anthers at the head of a sunflower, each holding hundreds of pollen. Bees come to feed on pollen grains mainly to get protein and energy and carry some to feed their larvae. The energy obtained through pollen feeding helps the bees to fly back to the hives.
Do bees pollinate sunflowers?
Sunflowers most likely experience wind or self-pollination. They have loosely packed pollen grains on their large flower heads, containing several tiny flowers. When there is a strong wind, the pollen grains get carried in the small flowers, and pollination occurs.
However, this does not mean bees will not pollinate sunflowers. Actually, bees are renowned insect pollinators. First off, when seeking nectar, bees open the anthers and style, thus allowing for space for pollen grains to move downward and start the fertilization process.
Further, some pollen will stick to them while feeding. The bees will inadvertently carry the pollen grains to other sunflowers, thus facilitating cross-pollination.
After pollination, sunflowers undergo fertilization which leads to the formation of fruits in the form of seeds. The seeds attract a wide variety of birds and other insects that will feed on the sweet soft sunflower seeds.
Human beings can also feed on them and benefit their bodies from the vast nutrients found within the sunflower seeds. For large-scale sunflower gardening, the seeds can be used to make essential oils and cooking oils.
What do sunflowers attract?
Besides bees, sunflowers attract many pollinators and predators that feed on their soft edible seeds. Here are some of the many insects, birds, and animals that sunflowers attract.
- Deer
- Butterflies
- Ladybugs
- Chipmunks
- Hedgehogs
- Chickadees
- Rats
- Mice
- Squirrel
- Raccoons
- Sparrows
- Rabbits
- Voles
- Finches
- Groundhogs
It is clear that sunflowers attract a good number of animals, probably more than most flowering plants you will find in gardens. Whatever animals will visit your garden will depend on the stage of the sunflowers.
Some come to eat pollen and collect nectar; others predate on flies, then there are those that feed on the soft edible sunflower seeds.
Do bees like sunflowers: Conclusion
Like many brightly colored flowers, sunflowers attract bees and a variety of animals, ranging from insects to large predators.
The relationship between bees and sunflowers is mutual as they all benefit from each other. If you are considering keeping bees, planting sunflowers near the beehive can help you fill your bee trap boxes very fast.
Related Article: Can Sunflowers Grow in Cold Weather?