I haven't gotten any bee pods in the three years that I have been growing Iris. However, If I do, and if it carries seed I may just plant them. I recall reading in some research I was doing once that Iris 'Dusky Challenger' came out of a bee pod and among the myriad of awards that it has received it is also a Dykes Medal winner. Hey, we can all dream!

I find more bee pods on the dwarfs then the tall Bearded, but when I find one on a TB most often it's an empty pod.

I've noticed that more of the blacks or near-black iris have a red undertone, than have a blue undertone. I would expect bees to maybe react differently to these different undertone colors. Black Lipstick seems to be one of the very few with a blue undertone instead of red, and since bees see blue and like blue better than red, I suspect it could play a difference in attracting them.

Just an aside here: I found out that the darkly colored "bees" attracted by my mums, were not a variety of wild honey bees at all. They are, in fact, something called hover flies! So my mums are getting pollinated, but actually by a type of fly that looks very much like a honey bee.