These plants surround a swimming pool in Piedmont and are beautiful. Bees use them and if you are having a swim, they will attack you. We have to dive under the water to avoid these Italian bees. They live here and we are visitors so have to respect their space. There is a particularly scary looking black bumble-type bee (a carpenter bee) that appears like the Darth Vader of beeland. We talk about how it would be bad enough to be stung by the ordinary European bees, but if that big one got you you'd be dead. The lavender is what the big ones prefer so I walk back to the house to avoid the lavender at all costs.