GARDENING: THE FLOWER THAT EATS UP BEES
As a child I used to eagerly await the gardening activities of a neighbour who, every year without fail, grew a magnificent show of what I learnt were dwarf antirrhinums beneath her equally glorious display of ‘masquerade’ floribunda roses.
I liked the roses but have to admit that it was the ‘antirrhinums’ that really stirred my soul, not for their intricate and fascinating blooms (that enduring fascination developed later), but for the fat and furry bumble bees which insistently pried the petals open before disappearing into the flowers’ throats.
Until then I had not seen carnivorous plants and hence thought that the flowers ate the bees. However, my older brother soon taught me otherwise although as he was perhaps seven years old at the time and not at all interested in flowers, really didn’t have a clue himself. He invented something to scare me and, I am delighted to say, completely failed!
He told me that “They hide inside those weird flowers, sneaking peeks at any humans who come near, so that when you are not looking they can fly out and sting you.” However, as I also quickly learnt, it was aimed at disguising his own mischief: one day, I caught him creeping up on an antirrhinum plant, jam jar in one hand, lid in the other, watching as he ‘squidged’ a bee-inhabited bloom into the jar, lightly screwed on the lid, rolled the jar and contents down a slope until the lid fell off and a very dizzy, completely disorientated bumble bee buzzed out in a series of dizzily acrobatic circles. Whilst he laughed himself silly, the poor tortured bee, re-orientated itself, made a ‘beeline’ for the nearest person (him) and stung him badly on his arm.
The easy way to grow antirrhinums, the most common garden flowers in the country
Later, from an aunt, I learnt a lovely antirrhinum fact: carefully snip off a single bloom, gently tweak it together at its base and it will open its mouth in a huge smile ... if there happens to be a bumble bee, happily feeding on nectar, inside the flower at the time, it will simply fly away as it knows that you do not mean to harm it. It also knows that if it stings you it will die as, unlike many other stinging insects, it has a ‘once only and perish’ stinging ability so, for obvious reasons, prefers not to use it.