# Can anyone identify this tree?



## cervus (May 8, 2016)

Looks like a crape myrtle.


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## GSkip (Dec 28, 2014)

Crepe myrtle, bloom colors range from white to red or pink. Have several in my yard.


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## Yunzow (Mar 16, 2017)

Thanks y'all!


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## Hoot Owl Lane Bees (Feb 24, 2012)

That is something?
There are about 40 Red Crepe Myrtle at my work and the bees hardly touch it unless there is nothing else blooming.


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## cervus (May 8, 2016)

I've read they are not too much of a nectar source, rather a pollen source.


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## Yunzow (Mar 16, 2017)

I read somewhere else that it might have something to do with the color of the flower.



Hoot Owl Lane Bees said:


> That is something?
> There are about 40 Red Crepe Myrtle at my work and the bees hardly touch it unless there is nothing else blooming.


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## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

cervus said:


> I've read they are not too much of a nectar source, rather a pollen source.


That is my understanding too. Good pollen, but no nectar.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Hoot Owl Lane Bees said:


> That is something?
> There are about 40 Red Crepe Myrtle at my work and the bees hardly touch it unless there is nothing else blooming.


I have the purple variety in my yard. My mother has white and and red varieties in her yard. We are next door neighbors. Her white ones are worked heavily, my purple ones are worked a little and I've never seen a honeybee on her red ones.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Going through our yearly summer dearth my bees will forage anything useful within a 3 mile radius. Even
the pink or red ones they will go for it. If not much nectar then they will bring in the pollen. Summer hungry bees cannot
be picky anymore as they are competing with other nearby colonies for whatever scarce resources are out there.


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## bentonkb (May 24, 2016)

I read that Crepe Myrtle makes two kinds of pollen and no nectar. The yellow pollen is made in large quantities to attract bees. The Brown pollen is for reproduction.

We have the white variety blooming now in VA. I often see bees working the red ones at work, but they bloom later.


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## Western (May 29, 2016)

Nechez is the cultivar of CM that has the white flower, there are a few CM growers in North Texas I have ordered from and often see them at the big box store garden centers. We had 2 huge ones in town, pink and darker red, never saw a bee on either one.


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## Yunzow (Mar 16, 2017)

Yeah, watching the bees work the flowers, they madly scramble over the flowers very quick, I don't see any proboscis insertion / drinking.



psm1212 said:


> That is my understanding too. Good pollen, but no nectar.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

typically they only work it in the morning too, once it heats up, I think there's nothing to forage on.


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

Brad Bee said:


> I have the purple variety in my yard. My mother has white and and red varieties in her yard. We are next door neighbors. Her white ones are worked heavily, my purple ones are worked a little and I've never seen a honeybee on her red ones.


This is consistent with my observations as well. That said, bees don't work crepe myrtle if there is _any_ other food available.


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## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

They love my white crepe myrtle, but ignore my pink and red one. Monarch butterflies also nectar on the white one.


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## Yunzow (Mar 16, 2017)

That's right this afternoon, no bees on the myrtle, but now they are working the clover underneath that they were ignoring in the morning!


JRG13 said:


> typically they only work it in the morning too, once it heats up, I think there's nothing to forage on.


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## JConnolly (Feb 21, 2015)

Yunzow said:


> My grandfather and great-uncle kept bees and my fiancée's grandfather, too. I want to pass this tradition along.


Thomas, 

No comment on the tree, but on your sig-line and the tradition. My grandfather and great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather were old Virginia beekeepers. As a teen I helped my Grandfather in his apiaries. Some how the tradition skipped a generation at my father and his brothers, none of whom kept bees. I and my son renewed the tradition on the other side of the Great Divide. Keep the tradition alive.


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