Hummingbirds and Cultivating Scarlet Runner Beans in Your Garden’s

By Dr. Ward stone

The Indigenous people of North and South America had apparently developed corn over the course of thousands of years through gardening and selection. From a cultural standpoint, corn was a very important food to the indigenous people. They had popcorn, dried corn, and green corn. They also cultivated beans that grew on the stalks of the corn. When the corn was harvested, the beans were also taken. Squash was also a very significant food and along with the beans and corn allowed for a nutritional food diet to be present throughout the year. The ability to store these vegetables over winter was beneficial to the maintenance of nutrition through periods of inclement weather.

The Mohawks as do the other Iroquois nations call these plants the “three sisters” (corn, beans, and squash). I decided to raise the three sisters in my Diamond Ridge garden. The corn stalks are at least 8 feet tall, and the beans called scarlet runners grow up the entire height of the corn stalk. The name scarlet runner originates after the scarlet colored which appears on the vine of the climbing bean. I noticed that despite the large variety of flowers in my garden the hummingbirds preferred to go to the bean flowers. They seemingly preferred the bean flowers rather than the artificial sugar presented to them in a commercially available hummingbird feeder.

An important question is how healthy is the commercially available red sucrose feeder fluid found for the health of hummingbirds compared to the nectar obtained from the red bean flowers? Do the hummingbirds balance out their commercial feeder sugar solution by foraging for nectar so that good health is maintained? This is a question for a graduate student or more and for all of us who love birds in life. I speculate that hummingbirds have taken the nectar from indigenous people’s bean plants for thousands of years and that their association with the corn and beans was good for the hummingbirds and possibly additionally for the indigenous gardeners particularly if the hummingbirds also pollinate the bean flowers.

Curiously, I have an old blanket from Mexico in which hummingbird patterns are clearly worked into the piece. A pattern that I think reaches back eons of time. I intend to see what my first nations friends, historians, and scientists have to say about any recorded histories of the relationship between hummingbirds and bean flowers. One such friend is Kay Olan, a mohawk storyteller who points out there is a story that the shape of the lacrosse net was inspired by the tail shape of the hummingbird. In the meantime, planting pole beans like the scarlet runner can bring hummingbirds to your garden with much enjoyment for you and the hummingbirds. Pete, I would like to hear your views on hummingbirds and bean flowers as well as that of your readers.