Roses are among the most popular flowers, leading many gardeners to wonder if these blooms support honey bee populations. Whether a rose is a valuable source of forage depends entirely on the specific variety of the flower. Honey bees are generalist foragers, but their choices are driven by efficiency and reward. The vast genetic differences between rose types determine their nutritional value. Modern garden roses, bred primarily for aesthetic appeal, often offer little to the bee, whereas older, simpler varieties remain a viable food source.
Why Hybrid Roses Offer Little Value to Honey Bees
The overwhelming majority of roses sold today have been extensively bred to achieve aesthetically pleasing features like high petal counts and long bloom times. This breeding process often compromises the flower’s ability to provide sustenance for pollinators. The morphology of these “double” or “full” blooms physically impedes access to the reproductive organs where food resources are located.
In a typical hybrid rose, the numerous layers of petals are actually modified stamens, which are the pollen-producing organs of the flower. This genetic alteration directly reduces or eliminates the amount of viable pollen available to the foraging bee. For the few stamens that remain, the dense layers of petals create a physical barrier, making it difficult or impossible for the bee to land and reach the pollen or any residual nectar.
Roses are generally known to produce pollen, but many do not produce nectar at all. Since pollen is the only potential reward (the protein source for the colony), the lack of nectar makes them less appealing. Even if the rose scent is powerful to humans, modern hybrids often lack the specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that bees seek out. The focus on human appeal has resulted in a nutritionally poor food source for the honey bee.
How Honey Bees Navigate and Select Forage
Honey bees are highly efficient foragers who use sophisticated sensory cues to select the most rewarding floral sources. Their decision to visit a flower is based on a multimodal assessment that combines visual, olfactory, and even tactile information. This sensory strategy helps the bee ensure it is expending energy only on flowers that will provide a substantial return of nutrients.
Visually, bees perceive the world differently than humans because they can see ultraviolet (UV) light. Many flowers possess UV markings, known as nectar guides, that direct the bee toward the center of the bloom where the food is located. While roses may be visually appealing in human colors, the preferred colors for honey bees generally fall in the blue, violet, and yellow spectrums, and the color red appears black to them.
Olfactory cues are equally important as the bee approaches a potential patch of flowers. Floral scents are composed of specific VOCs that bees learn to associate with a food reward. A bee learns to associate a specific odor with high-quality nectar, and this scent memory guides subsequent foraging trips. This reliance on a learned scent profile explains why a bee may bypass a heavily scented rose if the flower’s chemical signature is not rewarding.
A bee’s nutritional goal is twofold: obtaining nectar for carbohydrates (energy for flight) and collecting pollen for protein and fats (essential for larval development). Bees prioritize flowers that offer both high quantity and quality of these resources. They demonstrate “flower constancy,” meaning an individual bee will often focus on only one species during a single foraging trip to maximize efficiency. This focused behavior means a bee must be immediately rewarded by a flower to justify the energy expenditure of visiting it.
Identifying Bee-Friendly Roses and Superior Alternatives
Gardeners who wish to include roses while supporting honey bees should choose varieties that maintain the ancestral, open flower structure. These are generally single-petal roses, species roses, or wild roses, which typically have only five to ten petals and an exposed center. The open form ensures that the pollen-rich stamens are easily accessible to a foraging bee.
Specific varieties known to be valuable forage include species roses like Rosa rugosa and Rosa canina (Dog Rose), as well as certain heirloom or modern single-flowered hybrids. These types are often rich in pollen, which bees collect and turn into “bee bread” to feed their young. Selecting varieties that bloom repeatedly throughout the season also provides a continuous food source for the colony.
Bee-friendly roses are generally secondary forage compared to plants known for high nectar and pollen yields. Gardeners prioritizing bee health should incorporate superior alternatives that offer mass-blooming resources. Excellent choices include:
- Herbs like borage and lavender.
- Perennials such as bee balm (Monarda).
- Coneflower (Echinacea).
- Clover.
These plants provide the reliable resource flow that honey bees require to sustain a healthy colony.