I

ANNO 4 Numero 3
Laura Fortunato, Franco Frilli, Mauro D'Agaro [1]

Eryngium amethystinum L.: an alternative nectar source for bees during summertime. Preliminary surveyings.

[1] Dipartimento di Biologia applicata alla Difesa delle Piante, Università degli Studi di Udine, Udine, Italy

Corresponding author: laura.fortunato@uniud.it



The Amethyst Sea Holly (Eryngium amethystinum L.) is a perennial herbaceous plant common in dry environments, belonging to the Umbelliferae family .

In order to evaluate its interest to bees as a nectar source, an investigation was carried out in a non-irrigated meadow in Pagnacco (Udine, Northern-Eastern Italy). During field observations bees, on E. amethystinum flowers, were counted and identified; competition plants, flowering in the same period, were also noted.
The most frequent visitor of Amethyst Sea Holly was A. mellifera, followed by Bombus. pascuorum ssp. floralis, B. lapidarius, B. terrestris, B. sylvarum and Halictus scabiosae.

Honeybees constantly visited this plant during the day, while bumblebees showed a different behaviour: B. pascuorum ssp. floralis gathered on this plant both morning and afternoon, B. terrestris was most frequent during the morning and B. sylvarum often visited the flowers in the second part of the day.

No other plant seems to compete effectively with E. amethystinum for the number of foraging bees.