This year, for a bit of amusement, I bought seeds for red-flowered broad beans. The flowers proved to be a very deep velvety red - very pretty.

But - the set has been terrible! About one pod per plant.

So - is this a bad year for beans? Or is it that the red flowered beans just don't attract bees? What pollinates broad beans anyway - are they pollinated by bumblebees or do they need honey bees? Could the proximity of the raspberries and loganberries mean that my bees didn't have eyes for anything else?