Why Do Bees Like Purple Flowers?

Why do bees like purple flowers best? Well they like violet flowers and blue flowers a lot too, which may give you a clue…

Scented flowers, purple flowers, blue flowers and particular markings on flowers – of whatever colour – all attract the bees’ attention.

But why? Well because, obviously, flowers that are pollinated by bees need to entice the bees to them. But that answer is simplistic, so lets investigate further…

Not all Pollinating Insects like the same Flowers

This should not be a surprise. Although they all like and need nectar rich flowers for the food they provide, pollinating insects are not an homogenous group. For example, a hoverfly has a different mouth shape to a bee, so certain flower shapes are accessible to one, but not the other.

Scent attracts some pollinators. How many times have you been intoxicated by a flower’s fragrance? Many of the essential oils used in aromatherapy and perfumes are derived from floral scent chemicals that the flowers produce to attract pollinators.

Not all scent is the same. Flowers pollinated by bees and hoverflies usually have sweet scents; whilst those pollinated by beetles generally have a spicy fragrance.

What is so special about Bees?

Bees are the largest group of insect pollinators in the world. Now I admit I’m lazy and often refer to bees generically as Apis or Apoidea. But as it happens, there are over 16,000 species of bee, which are made up of seven biological families, and these are in the ‘superfamily’ Apoidea.

Scientists consider bees to be a keystone species as they are so important to an ecosystem that it will collapse without them. Which is not surprising when you learn that bees are found on every continent except for Antarctica. And in every habitat in those continents that contain insect-pollinated flowering plants.

If that doesn’t convince you, what about the fact that 35% of crops (ie food we humans eat) are pollinated by insects. Plus 80% of that insect crop pollination is accomplished by bees, with Honey bees, Apis mellifera, in particular, providing c14%. (They’re the bees we tend to keep in hives.)

But let us get back to the answer to the question of why bees like purple flowers best.

Why Do Bees Like Purple Flowers Best?

This is where we need to change the focus away from the bees for a moment and onto the flowers themselves.

Flowers that are pollinated by bees need to entice the bees to them – obvious fact. But have you ever wondered how they do that?

Just being a “nectar rich flower” isn’t enough. If a flower wants to be pollinated (the end game!) then it has to find ways of enticing the pollinators to it. And different pollinating insects prefer different colours and scents on their flower, as we’ve noted above.

But it seems that bees, especially honeybees, are born attracted to the colour purple. Which is really clever of them, as flowers in the violet-blue range produce the highest volumes of nectar.

However, what’s really clever is that it is the purple flowers that have taught the bees to love their colour best and come to pollinate them. That’s basically why bees like purple flowers best – nature can be clever and not always obvious, I find. Spare a thought for the flowers though, they have to work hard to produce purple colours to entice the bees, by creating an ultra-violet haze around themselves which is visible to the clear sighted bees.

Yes, clear sighted bees. That bees have impressive eyesight and see in colour was discovered more than a hundred years ago by Karl von Frisch of honey bee waggle dance fame (see below). Just like us humans, bees have trichromatic vision, ie they have three different photoreceptors in the retina. These distinguish three certain primary colours, which form the basis for colour combinations seen. The primary colours for humans are red, blue and green and for bees, blue, green and ultraviolet light.

Experiments, particularly in Australia and Germany on wild flowers, show that bees’ inborn colour preference for purple gives them a good start in life. And it would seem to apply to many bee species in Asia, Europe and North America.

Bees Like Purple Flowers so much they have a Dance

Unlike the purple preference, bees have to learn the advantages of flowers of other colours by going out into the world and checking out what’s there.

They can see reddish hues such as yellow and orange, and thanks to ultraviolet patterns on flowers that direct bees to where the nectar and pollen are stored, bees are able to enjoy feeding from all colours of flower.

And when they find a good source of nectar, the bee needs to let the other members of her hive know about it. It was Karl von Frisch who, by studying how honey bees navigate, showed that they communicate by the waggle dance. This is where a worker bee performs a particular figure-eight dance, sharing information about the direction and distance to nectar laden flowers with other members of the colony

Von Frisch demonstrated that bees can recognize a desired compass direction in three different ways: by the sun, by the polarization pattern of the blue sky, and by the earth’s magnetic field. The sun is the preferred compass; perhaps this is why many of us put bees and yellow flowers together. From now on, you’ll be more likely to think of purple flowers when you think of bees!

If Bees like Purple Flowers best, What should we Grow in Our Gardens?

If bees like purple flowers best, does that means we should only grow purple flowers? Of course not! We’ve shown that other colours of flower can attract these insect pollinators.

What we should be growing in our gardens in order to attract bees and other beneficial wildlife is a good range of flowering plants all year round. Although simple flower shapes are best, you don’t need to deprive yourself of decorative double flowered varieties so long as you have plenty of single flowers too.

Check out the links below for planting ideas for year round enjoyment for you and the bees!

A Warning

Its also very important to garden organically – and encourage others to do so. I feel this is more important than ever, let me share an example with you:

I was in a client’s garden recently where we have created a wildlife pond, a herb garden and are now working on a kitchen garden. The aforesaid client gardens organically and normally the garden is alive with buzzing and twittering – its an organic, wildlife friendly place for humans and pets too.

There we were, chatting, and then we realised how quiet it was. There were no bees and hardly any birds either.

We could only presume that one of the near neighbours had used a chemical pesticide spray. Possibly near a wild bees nest, but certainly on flowers that bees pollinate. Whether it was on purpose or not we don’t know, but the fact that one day the garden is alive and the next it is so silent and empty of bees and birds, is extremely worrying …

Bees Needs Week UK

Bees’ Needs Week is an annual event coordinated by Defra, working alongside and involving a number of charities, academic institutions, businesses, conservation groups, us gardeners and the public to help raise awareness of bees and other pollinators. It is part of the National Pollinator Strategy, England. This was begun in 2014 and is a ten year plan to help bees and other pollinators survive and thrive.

In 2020, Bees’ Needs Week runs from July 13 -19 and is, as you’d expect, largely online. Check out the Bumble Bee Conservation for some ideas. And do get in touch with Plews for a bee friendly garden design or planting design.

Enjoy the bee video below and spot which herbaceous perennial flowers are within the bees’ sight range…