With bees, it's not how many, it's how many kinds

"Honey bees are nice, but a farm that also has bumble bees, carpenter bees, and many small specialist bee species working their blueberry bushes gets more fruit."

Full article here - Native bees increase blueberry crop yields

Honey bees are the most abundant bee in blueberry fields, but they are also the least efficient bee at pollinating blueberries, and fussy about when they will fly.

Funny because I didn't see any of my honey bees on my blueberries, just bumblebees! It's possible the blueberries were too close to the hive, less than 50'. I've seen 4 types of bees so far this year (not including wasps or hornets), three on this plant today!

Anyone know what plant it is?

Wonderful article Burra!

I found a some neat info-images online that relate to this topic:

I saw 4 types of bumblebees and a honey bee on this plant yesterday:

I think it's a type of burdock but I'm not sure.

I think one is the tri-colored bumblebee which I only differentiated because of the pics Dave posted.

The other day I saw many types of bumblebees, honeybees and a dragon fly on this bull thistle:


I'm starting to develop a theory that any plant my free ranging sheep wont eat, that flowers, is good for bees, although I did catch a ewe trying to eat that burdock which was fenced off. I've been feeling like maybe I should get out the weed wacker to take out those spiney weeds the sheep aren't eating but now I feel a little more justified in leaving them be[e].

It's that time of year. Bee pix!

These are some different types of bees:



This is a beautiful video of pictures of native bee species in North America:



And a few different varieties of honey bees: