A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 Another reason to love bee balm!

Bee balm, Monarda is one of my all time favorite flowers! I have five different colors of it. The bees love it, and I love them for pollinating everything, the butterflies love it and the hummingbirds love it! Today a new creature was caught perching precariously on my bee balm and enjoying it!

Sorry, the pics were taken through the screened window.

I have never had bee balm, but after going on a garden tour this summer - I will have lots of it! Except my son who is terrified of bees doesn't want them.

Both the male and female were on it:

how neat!

Your bird is an American Goldfinch, a notorious seed eater that prefers to strip the seeds out of flower heads rather than eat already harvested seed. I plant sunflowers almost every year so that the Goldfinches can come and eat the ripe seed directly from the flower head.

I don't even think that the flower has gone to seed yet!

Mel, I think when the top petals fall off it has seeds even thouh the botom petals are still there. Goldfinch and chickadees make short work of my sunflowers too Thorny.

What a neat picture, Mel! I have Bee Balm in several of my garden beds, but I've never seen any my Goldfinch getting seeds from them. It seems they prefer the seed in the Goldfinch feeders.

Looks like it's time to remove the screen, Mel. What a treat that must have been for you. The Gold Finch here seem to prefer the Coneflower seeds but they have recently been raiding the Malva Zebrina, too. They just ride the stems to the ground like a bucking bronco.

That first picture is just gorgeous, Mel..