Quote:
Originally Posted by kay
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?
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Has anybody any suggestions on this?
I thought I might try both red and white flowered next year, and see which sets best. But if broad beans aren't pollinated by bumblebees, it's a waste of time and money, since bumblebees are all we have. And if the loganberries are too much of a counter attraction, it's also a waste of time and money as the garden isn't big enough to plant the beans away from the loganberries.