Making Your Garden Bee-Friendly

Give bees a helping hand by planting bulbs, annuals, herbs, small fruits, perennials, vines, shrubs, and trees that provide all the nectar they need to create a healthy and productive hive. Choose a variety of plants that flower at different times of the year so there is always a snack available when bees are out.

Location:

Select an open, sunny, south-facing area that is protected from the wind. This will provide the maximum hours of warmth and sunlight that bees need.

Plants:

• Plant a wide variety of plants that flower continuously at different but overlapping times during spring, summer, and fall.
• Flowers should have single rather than double blooms to better supply the bee with nectar and pollen.
• Plant a variety of colourful and scented flowers. Bees have excellent colour vision and love bright hues.
• Plant each species of plant en masse and fairly close together to better supply the bee with nectar and prevent the bees from becoming exhausted.

Maintenance:

• Avoid the use of pesticides and herbicides wherever possible, especially those that have a residual effect such as those containing pyrethrins.

• Leave areas of bare soil for the bees to live in; they prefer a raised area of sandy soil facing south.
• Avoid the use of mulch and landscape fabric in this area.
• Leave an old stump or log for bees to make homes in or drill holes of 7–8 mm wide and 10–13 cm deep at varying heights in old posts or logs. Holes at varying heights attract different species of bees.

• Agastache (summer)
• Beard-tongue (summer)
• Beebalm (summer)
• Bellflower (summer)
• Black-eyed Susan (summer/fall)
• Blanketflower (summer)
• Butterfly weed (summer)
• Blue phlox (spring)
• Candytuft (spring)
• Catmint (spring/summer)
• Christmas rose (early spring)
• Columbine (spring)
• Coneflower (summer/fall)
• Common and swamp milkweed
• Coreopsis (summer)
• Cranesbill (spring/summer/fall)
• Delphinium (summer)
• Evening primrose (spring–fall)
• False indigo (summer)
• Forget-me-not (spring)
• Foxglove (summer)
• Globe thistle (summer)
• Gaura (summer/fall)
• Gayfeather (summer)
• Joe pye-weed (summer/fall)
• Lupine (summer)
• New England aster (fall)
• Pincushion flower (summer)
• Poppy – Iceland (spring/summer)
• Poppy – oriental (spring/summer
• Red hot poker (summer)
• Rock cress (spring)
• Sweet William (spring/summer)
• Sedum/stonecrop (summer)
• Thrift (spring)
• Virgina bluebells (spring)
• Yarrow (summer)

• Alyssum
• California poppy
• China aster
• Cornflower
• Cleome
• Cosmos
• Love in a mist
• Pot marigold (Calendula)
• Marigold
• Sunflower
• Sweet Pea
• Zinnia

• Butterfly bush
• Chastetree
• Dogwood
• Golden currant
• Hawthorn
• Japanese lilac
• Mock orange
• Ornamental cherry
• Pee gee hydrangeas
• Serviceberry
• Staghorn sumac
• St. John’s wort
• Serviceberry
• Summersweet
• Willow

• Crabapple (spring)
• Eastern redbud (spring)
• Flowering cherry (spring)
• Fruit trees – apple, pear, etc.(spring)
• Honey-locust (late spring)
• Linden (summer)
• Magnolia (spring)
• Maple – sugar, red, silver (spring)
• Norway maple
• Ohio buckeye
• Tulip tree (spring)
• Willow (spring)

• Strawberries (all season)
• Blackberries (spring)
• Raspberries (spring)
• Gooseberries (spring)
• Blueberries (summer)

• Basil
• Borage
• Fennel
• Lavender
• Lemon balm
• Mint
• Oregano
• Rosemary
• Sage
• Thyme

• Crocus
• Scilla
• Snowdrops

• Clematis (bees show a marked preference for blue flowers, which the clematis family has an abundance of) (spring/summer)
• Honeysuckle (summer–fall)