Summer Long-Horned Bees are back

Yay! They are back!

Every year I plant sunflowers from seedlings for pollinators.

And I have to admit that the main pollinators I have in mind are always monarch butterflies and Summer Long-Horned bees.

Summer Long-Horned bees do visit the garden, but I don't really see them until they visit the sunflowers.

These bees look very similar to Spring Long-Horned bees.

The prime foraging plants for Spring Long-Horned bees are Lavender, Wallflowers and Catmint, of which we only have Lavender. The flight season for these bees is March to June.

Note the extremely long antennae!

The Summer Long-Horned bees prefer plants in the aster family, especially sunflowers, when foraging for pollen.

I may be wrong but I strongly believe these are Summer Long-Horned bees.

This year I planted three sunflower plants from seedlings that I bought at one of our local independent nurseries, hoping to have a patch of sunflowers. Alas, one of the seedlings withered and died within a matter of weeks, while the other two remain very small, maybe 4 inches. They still have green leaves but aren't growing taller.

However, this California Delta sunflower surprised us.

It is growing from a seed that must have fallen from another California Delta sunflower that was growing last year more or less in the same spot. It germinated in the early spring and I kept an eye on it.

It is now nearly five feet tall, and is the sunflower the Long-Horned bees are visiting.