Bees Like Milkweed
Bees like Milkweed Flowers
Scattered amongst the wildflowers I let grow on the back part of our property grows milkweed. A green variety that stays low to the ground and produces greenish flowers with bits of purple within. They’re neat looking plants and I hear tell that Monarch butterflies will lay eggs on them – so I leave them be. However, they have yet another benefit too – my bees seem to love them! I expected as much, but it’s neat to see the bees collecting from these flowers. The plant itself isn’t all that remarkable and the flower-heads are distinctive but not showy. And yet, the bees are so intent on these flowers that I was able to put the camera an inch from them to get closeups without their flying off. That must be some really good nectar!
I believe this is Asclepias asperula - Spider Milkweed, also called Antelope Horns
Unlike other flowers where the bees will fly from flower to flower fairly quickly – even if the flowers are part of a raceme, in this case the bees crawl over the surface of the ball of flowers, going from flower to flower meticulously. They also seem to take longer collecting nectar from these flowers than I’ve seen from other flowers, as if they’re sucking up a large amount of nectar. I have no idea just how nectar rich these flowers are and will attempt to find out with a little more research, but it seems that they hold a special attraction for my bees. So far I only have a small scattering of these plants on my property, tho they are common across the ranch-oriented landscape in this region. But I can reliably find bees on every flower-head with open flowers – usually two or three bees at that. They seem to ignore the butterflies that settle down beside them, and don’t give much attention to the crab spider that ambushed one of their sisters.
Bees are totally engrossed in these flowers, completely ignoring me.
I periodically collect seeds from these milkweed, intending to sow them when I get around it hoping to provide for the struggling Monarch butterfly. So far I haven’t gotten the gumption – just so many other projects clamoring for my time. But I may want to give further attention to these seeds and collect fresh seeds too. Normally they waft away into the breeze, never to be seen again. I’ll collect many of them, remove their filamentous umbrellas and scatter them back out over the property to get a denser growth of them going. It’ll be neat to see them sprouting next Spring and producing a lot more of these balls of flowers for the bees. And perhaps I may find a Monarch caterpillar or three on them too.
