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?

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.