Honey Bees Dancing on a Pride of Madiera

Pride of Madiera flowers fill the pollinator gap between late spring and early summer

Pride of Madiera hosting a lot of honey bees

It’s almost summer and most of the native plants like the sages, buckwheats, and phacelias, as well as their Mediterranean cousins like French lavender and Jerusalem sage are done with their blooming, but the vegetable garden hasn’t hit full stride yet.

Fortunately, the bees aren’t going hungry because another Mediterranean plant, Pride of Madiera (Echium candicans) fills the flower gap. It begins to flower in late spring with big, sticky purple flowers honey bees find absolutely irresistible.

A Pride of Madiera jn the front dry garden

The plant, which sort of looks like a shaggy green pom-pom with purple spikes sticking out of it, is covered in so many bees that it hums on sunny afternoons.

I tried to capture a video of it with the bees humming, but suburban noise (cars, airplanes, leaf blowers, etc.) drowned it out. So I put in a soundtrack instead. Enjoy.