Bee Balm (Monarda), a popular North American perennial herb, is highly effective at attracting a wide range of pollinators. As a native plant, it serves an important ecological role by providing essential resources for local wildlife. Bee balm’s vibrant blooms and unique structure are specifically adapted to draw in various insects and birds. This article explores the features that create this strong attraction and provides practical advice for successful cultivation.
The Pollinator-Friendly Structure of Bee Balm
The inherent biology of the Monarda flower is designed to signal and reward specific types of visitors. The flowers are clustered into dense, showy heads, and each individual bloom is a slender, tubular shape. This morphology acts as a specialized feeding apparatus, favoring creatures with long mouthparts.
The corolla, or flower tube, is often long enough to exclude short-tongued insects, ensuring that the nectar is consumed by effective pollinators. The vibrant colors, typically ranging from bright red, pink, and purple, are visual cues highly visible to insects and birds. The lower petal often projects outward, providing a small “landing pad” that assists visiting insects in positioning themselves to access the nectar.
This floral structure is paired with a generous supply of nectar, providing the necessary energy reward. Studies show that larger flowers with longer corolla tubes often correlate with higher sugar content per flower, making the reward worthwhile. For example, the ‘Jacob Cline’ cultivar is noted for producing a high amount of sugar. The aromatic foliage, a characteristic of the mint family, also releases a scent that helps guide visitors to the blossoms.
Diverse Visitors: Attracting More Than Just Bees
While the name suggests an appeal primarily to bees, the Monarda genus attracts a diverse community of pollinators. The tubular shape and rich nectar content make it a particular favorite of hummingbirds. Red-flowered varieties like Monarda didyma are perfectly suited to the hummingbird’s long beak, allowing them to easily reach the deep nectar that shorter-tongued insects cannot.
The plant is also a significant resource for various butterfly species, including swallowtails and monarchs, which use their long proboscis to sip the nectar. The colorful, clustered blooms offer an easily identifiable and abundant food source for these lepidopterans. Night-flying insects like hummingbird moths are also known to visit the flowers.
Native bees, such as bumblebees, are strongly attracted to bee balm, though they often employ different feeding strategies. Some species have tongues long enough to reach the nectar directly, effectively pollinating the flower. Other bees with shorter tongues may engage in “nectar robbing,” creating a small hole at the base of the corolla to access the reward without entering the flower.
Maximizing Pollination in Your Garden
To ensure bee balm thrives and attracts the maximum number of pollinators, gardeners should focus on its cultural needs. The plant performs best in a location that receives full sun, meaning at least six hours of direct light daily. Full sun promotes robust blooming and increases the attractiveness of the flowers. While it can tolerate partial shade, too little sun results in fewer flowers and increased susceptibility to fungal diseases.
Bee balm requires consistently moist, well-draining soil to flourish. It is beneficial to enrich the soil with compost to help retain moisture while ensuring that water does not pool around the roots. Proper spacing is also important; planting individual stems 18 to 24 inches apart improves air circulation. This spacing is a practical measure against common issues like powdery mildew.
Planting bee balm in “drifts,” or large groups, makes the display more visually appealing and easier for pollinators to spot from a distance, increasing visitation. Gardeners can select cultivars bred for disease resistance and compact size, such as ‘Marshall’s Delight’ or ‘Jacob Cline’, to ensure a healthier plant and extended bloom time. To encourage continuous flowering and maximize nectar production throughout the season, remove spent flower heads, a practice known as deadheading.