Last updated on September 26th, 2022 at 08:47 am
Whether some plants or herbs attract specific insects, mostly pollinators, is one of the common questions most gardeners ask. This eagerness is due to the benefits insects such as butterflies and bees give to their garden.
Well, Rosemary on its own is one herb you should watch out for as it attracts a variety of insects. If you aren’t often sure if bees are among the insects this shrub attracts, you might ponder on it a lot.
So, Does Rosemary attract bees? Like other herbs such as chives, lemon balm, sage, and catnip, Rosemary attracts various bees. Its attractiveness to bees is due to its brilliant nectar-rich and blue-purple flowers. These flowers bloom all through spring, summer, and sometimes winter. Bees prefer blue, purple, white, and yellow colors as they are generally bright colors.
Do Bees Like The Smell Of Rosemary?
Bees like the aromatic scent of Rosemary. While it may not seem like a big deal, bees are generally selective to the fragrances of plants or herbs.
They detest the smell of some herbs, such as peppermint. Farmers often use the scent of their plants to attract insects such as bees and butterflies for pollination.
It may sound funny. The sense of smell that bees have is similar to ours; they like sweet-smelling blooms. Bees like the smell of scented herbs like Rosemary amidst others such as thyme, sage, and hyssop as they have sweet fragrances.
Bees smell with their antennae. Due to the mobility of the antennae, they can also smell structurally, enabling them to tell the direction from which the smell is coming. They will then head straight for the flowering plant, pollinate it and collect the nectar.
Do Bees Pollinate Rosemary?
Bees, like other insects such as butterflies, pollinate Rosemary. The fact is, more than 82.13% of plants on earth depend on insects for pollination in the presence of pollinating agents like the wind.
Thus, insects play a crucial role in maintaining natural plant communities and ensuring production in most flowering plants.
The ability of Rosemary to flower early(sometimes February in the northern hemisphere) makes it an attractive perennial plant for pollination.
Well, its sweet and rich nectar has a way of attracting pollinators as ‘the nectar’ serves a range of pollinator’s different benefits.
You should also note that whether bees will pollinate your Rosemary or not is dependent on its attraction to your Rosemary. They like a bright-colored petal and sweet fragrance. Therefore, your Rosemary will need to be flowering.
Bees are also drawn to single flowers with one ring of petals because they provide more nectar and pollen than double flowers do. In addition, blue, purple, and yellow flowers tend to have the most nectar loaded with sugars and are the bee’s energy source.
Also, pollination occurs when bees visit Rosemary plants for nectar and pollen, located in the flower of the Rosemary plant.
Nectar is loaded with sugars and serves as a source of energy to the bees, while pollen in the long run balances out the diet, adding protein and fats.
Moving on, bees require pollen and nectar to live and raise their young. Therefore, they usually visit flowering plants regularly to obtain these foods and pollinate them in the process. This process of pollination takes place in different stages.
Firstly, the bee visits the Rosemary and collects the pollen grains from the flower’s male reproductive organ. During the collection of the pollen, it sticks to the body of the bee through electrostatic forces. The bee then visits the next flower straight up!
Then, when the bee visits the next flower, some of these pollen grains are rolled off into the flower’s female reproductive organ. Here, reproduction occurs. At this point, the pollination process is complete!
However, collecting pollen requires a lot of energy. Luckily as the bee pollinates, the Rosemary provides and rewards it with nectar used to make honey and pollen that serves as a source of energy. It sounds so great, right? So yeah, this association makes them of mutual benefit to each other.
Pollination to significant to humans because it leads to the production of fruits and seeds. Bees play a crucial role in food chaining. They play a significant role in pollinating Rosemary.
How Do I Avoid Bees From My Rosemary?
It will be unfortunate if you have a Rosemary shrub or garden, and you want to avoid bees. It’s hard to keep bees away because bees are attracted to Rosemary shrubs due to their physical features and the plants’ benefits to them. Bees also need to survive through these benefits.
I would certainly wonder why you would want to keep bees away from your Rosemary shrub, garden, or bush. But, of course, you’ll be trying to reverse nature in some way.
Nonetheless, if you are allergic to bees and would not want to get stung, it becomes a pretty valid concern.
So, although there are no specific methods to use, they’re few things I suggest you do to avoid bees from your Rosemary plant.
Firstly, plant your Rosemary or site your Rosemary garden or bush away from other flowering shrubs that attract bees. Sadly, this method will only reduce the number of bees and will not eradicate them all.
Also, you can pinch off the flower buds before they open or soon after they open. However, the pinching off will enable your Rosemary shrub not to look attractive when the flowers appear.
But without flowers, there’s no nectar or pollen grain, so bees will have no reason to come around. Try these tips to reduce the number of bees around your Rosemary. But please note that they may not be completely effective.
Summary
Many plants such as Rosemary need bees for pollination. Their sweet nectar, bright-colored petal, and open tabular flower attract this pollinator (bees).
It would amuse you that bees’ sense smells are just like humans. The sweet-scented fragrance of Rosemary attracts bees more.
We should protect bees as they play a very vital role in the ecosystem. Even though you can take a few steps to avoid the number of bees around your Rosemary, avoiding them should not be an option.
Instead, you should attract them to your Rosemary shrub or garden unless you’re allergic to bees.
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