Bergamot
A North American prairie mint whose common name in English is simply bee balm, which is a fair summary. Monarda carries shaggy whorls of tubular flowers in midsummer and is worked hard by long-tongued bumblebees — though in its native range the scarlet species is a hummingbird plant, and its long corolla tube excludes honey bees almost entirely.
Value to bees
- Nectar
- High
- Pollen
- Moderate
- As a honey crop
- Feeds the colony but rarely yields a surplus
- Which bees, and why
- Long-tongued bumblebees work it legitimately. Short-tongued bumblebees and carpenter bees frequently bite through the base of the corolla to rob it, and honey bees then use the holes. The scarlet species is a hummingbird flower in North America, which is why the tube is as long as it is.
A long narrow corolla tube that excludes honey bees and most short-tongued species by the front. The pink and purple species have shorter tubes and are more widely usable than the scarlet ones.
- Worth knowing
- Good nectar, and genuinely restricted by flower shape — the ratings and the accessibility note need reading together here.
Flowering
- In flower
- July to September (northern hemisphere)
Six to ten weeks in midsummer, in the gap after the early perennials.
- When nectar flows
- Generous nectar held deep in a long tube, produced steadily through the flowering.
- Year-to-year variation
- Reliable in a moist border and prone to mildew in a dry one. Not a crop.
Growing it
- Conditions
- Sun or light shade, moist fertile soil that does not dry out. Dry roots produce mildew every time.
- Size
- 60-120 cm.
- Native range
- Eastern North America.
- Suits
- Small gardens, Large gardens, Meadow or wildflower area
- Choose a mildew-resistant cultivar and keep it moist — dry soil is the cause of the powdery white leaves it is notorious for.
- The purple Monarda fistulosa has a shorter tube than the scarlet species and is markedly better for bees generally.
- Divide every three years; the centre of the clump dies out.
What it looks like
Upright square stems with strongly aromatic leaves smelling of Earl Grey tea, topped by shaggy whorled heads of long tubular flowers in scarlet, pink, purple or white.
Sources
- Bumblebees: Behaviour, Ecology, and Conservation — Oxford University Press (2010) · Monograph
- Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland — Bloomsbury (2015) · Field guide
How sources are selected and weighted is set out in the sources and evidence policy.
Guides covering this plant
- How to make a garden genuinely useful to beesMost bee-friendly advice covers flowers in June, which is the one thing bees are least short of. The gaps are at the ends of the year — and half the problem is not flowers at all.
- A bee-friendly garden in the United StatesAround 4,000 native bee species and a continent too large for one planting list. What transfers is the method — regional natives, a long season and bare ground — rather than the species.
- Plants for bumblebeesLong tongues, big bodies, cold tolerance and an annual colony that has to build from a single queen. Bumblebees can use flowers honey bees cannot reach, and they need forage at both ends of the year when honey bees are indoors.
Tools for planning planting
- Flowering calendar
What should I plant so that something is always in flower for bees?
- Bee-friendly garden planner
What should I plant in the space I actually have?
- Plant recommendation tool
Which plant fills this specific gap?