| Family: | Fabaceae |
| Subfamily: | Faboideae |
| Genus: | Amorpha |
| Species: | A. fruticosa |
| Common names | desert false indigo false indigo-bush bastard indigobush |
| ZBAS* | 8 |
This flower was native to US but I saw it first time in China. When I saw it loaded with honey bees I asked my friend to stop his car and spent about 30 min shooting the bees. I saw bees mostly foraging for pollen, but I heard you can produce honey (a reddish one!) in some areas of China. The seeds of this plant contains a chemical, 6′-O-β-D-glucopyranosyl-12a-hydroxydalpanol, that is supposed to help the diabetics.
1. The flowers are small and not typical of legumes.
2. This honey bees was loaded with pollen.
3. The flowers were beautiful! 
4. It is difficult to see whether she was also taking nectar or not, but her pollen basket was medium in size.
5. Another bee.
6. Perhaps the same photo, cropped to be larger.
7. Hovering in the air.
The plant does produce honey in China. The color is redish to dark red.
Posted May 25, 2018
Updated June 8, 2020.
Beautiful photography Zack! What lens were these shot with?
I used a Nikon D700, Nikkor 105 mm micro VR and R1C1 wireless flashes.