Bees are garden-friendly bugs and they are beneficial too for our plants. So, it is not only the honey factor that makes bees relatable for us, but their obliging qualities for gardening are something we should appreciate immensely.
If you want to grab those benefits of bees in your garden, then, learn these simple tricks of how to attract bees to your garden quickly-
Quick Summary: How to Attract Bees to Your Garden
Before we jump into detailed ways to attract bees and why to have bees, let’s have a glance at a quick summary.
- Plant bright flowering plants with a single row of petals. As they make it easy for the bees to land, pollinate and eat rather than multi-layered. Like Coneflowers, daisies, sunflowers, and hibiscus to create a micro-habitat for bees.
- Diversity and Spread: Since bees prefer a wide range of flowers so, diversify your garden to lure bees to your garden
- Say a big no to chemical pesticides/insecticides in your garden(you already know that), bees are insects. A lot of bees die every year because of these chemicals
- Grow grounder-covering shrubs and flowering plants in your garden. As busy bees too do love to take a rest from the scorching sun.
- Keep your garden blooming throughout the year with the variety of plants that bloom in different seasons and plant a few perennials. Rosemary, chives, thyme, lavender, aconite, clematis, and bellflowers are a few blooms spread across seasons. While butterfly weeds, poppies, and lilies as perennials.
- Allow a few weed plants like dandelions and clovers to bloom which can charm the bees. Later you can remove the weed heads before they turn into seeds.
- Let them have a drink: Similar to ladybugs, bees get dehydrated, so place a shallow dish of water with pebbles or a few rocks. So that they can land on and quench their thirst without getting wet.
- Colors that attract bees: Plant shades of purple, violet, blue and yellow flowering plants as bees find these colors attractive.
- You can build a bug or bee house with hollow things like bamboo and plywood frame to provide shelter and encourage nesting.
- Go for native plants, trees, and shrubs in your region
- Have a vegetable garden and a set of fruit trees; with tomatoes, zucchini, watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkins, cucumber, peach, apple, and strawberries. These will guarantee to get the bees to your garden and their vibrating body is going turn your garden into an organic machine with high yield.
Seems you may also be interested in some quick ways to attract birds to your garden and feeder.
Best Flowers and Plants that Attract Bees:
- Bee Balm:
Bee balm is a flowering plant that can invite bees to your garden more willingly due to its nice fragrance and catchy foliage.
- Chive Flowers:
This spring flower is extremely alluring for bees. So, if you are trying to invite bees to your garden, sow this violate colored pom-pom-shaped pretty flower to your garden immediately.
- Golden Rod:
The eye-catchy golden blooms of the Goldenrod catch the glance of bees easily. So, bring this beneficial plant to your garden instantly to flock to bees in your orchard.
Lavender is a perennial plant that can make bees crazy for its pleasant smell. This plant is quite a flowering plant and quite an herb both in one receptacle. Growing them in your garden is the best way to invite pollinating insects into your yard.
Related: How to attract butterflies to your garden
- Marjoram:
This herb mostly attracts honey bees. Marjoram is probably the best plant to allure honey bees to your garden, all-around. It also encourages other pollinating insects as well along with bee flocks.
- Abelia:
Abelia is a great-looking flower plant that mostly blooms in spring through to fall. The gorgeous white flower easily catches the attention of bees towards them. To attract honey bees and bumblebees, plant this flowering plant in your garden immediately.
- Lilac:
Lilac is another must-have flowering plant for your garden if you want to attract bees to your yard. The vibrantly colored petals of lilac grab the attention of the pollinator easily. This plant also offers nectar pollen and indispensable blossoms to a pollinator. So, plant lilac in your garden for not only its bright glance but for its bee-catchy qualities as well.
Related: How to attract ladybugs to your garden
Few more plants that attract bees
- Chives
- Monarda
- Black-Eyed Susan
- Borage
- California poppies
- Lupine
- Liatris
- Blue Borage
- Crocus
- Foxgloves
Does marigold repel bees?
Honeybees: In the case of honey bees they aren’t bothered by marigolds’ smell, they visit a flower, pollinate, take nectar and that’s it. Though it is suggested as a folk remedy, still marigold flowers don’t seem to repel honeybees.
Hornet and yellow jacket: But in the case of other bees and wasps, the stench of marigold and its sunny yellow color proved to repel few insects and animals or act as a decoy to protect other plants.
Do rose flowers attract Bees?
Roses are one of the classic flowers that express love and yes bees love rose flowers and are attracted to them. Also, they are the major pollinators for rose plants.
Do Hydrangea Flowers Attract Bees
Except few varieties hydrangea flowers are rich and pollen and nectar are bees’ favorite and they are attracted to it.
Best hydrangea flowers to attract bees: Lacecap, climbing hydrangea, oakleaf, and hydrangea arborescens.
While sterile hydrangea flowers and french hydrangea varieties native to japan don’t fit the job.
Do lavender flowers attract bees?
That’s a big yes! when the season arrives and lavender blooms it’s like an open invitation for bees. With pleasant smell and nectar and pollen-rich flowers are a feast for honeybees and also bubble bees are attracted to it.
Plants and flowers that don’t attract bees
- Trumpet flowers and long narrow and deep flowers are not attractive to bees. As they have to go a long way and have to work hard, bees keep such flowers off the list. Maybe hummingbirds are attracted to it.
- Flowers like honeysuckle, buttercups, amaryllis, and ginger lilies.
- Dull colors and scentless flowers and literally any flower without pollen and nectar. Also, night flower plants and winter-blooming plants don’t insure to attract bees.
- And flowers like geranium, chrysanthemum, datura, strawflowers, dianthus, and penstemon are a few more plants that are not bee favorites.
- Planting peppermints and cloves is a bad idea too, as bees are insects that don’t like the strong spicy aroma of these plants.
- Also, bees are not attracted to cucumbers as the acid in these plants is unpleasant for the tiny pollinators.
Do jasmine flowers attract bees?
Yes! Jasmines are perennials with enough water and sun they bloom with a pleasing aroma that surely invites bees, hummingbirds, and wasps to your garden.
Quick Ways to Attract Bees to Your Garden
1. Choose the Right Plant:
If you want to attract bees to your garden naturally, you must pick the right plants to bring to your garden. Plants, which attract bees or any pollinator insects more effortlessly are the best plant to choose here.
2. Go for Native Plants:
Don’t look for exclusive or exotic plants. Bees can be attracted to native plants more excitingly than wild plants. If you want to make your garden experience more natural with bees, then, plant native plants more in bunches in your garden.
3. Charm with Variety:
Bees are attracted to vibrant colors along with heavy fragrances. So, try to go for varieties in your garden plant choice. As in, plant flowering or food crops plants in your garden, which are different in color, shape, or category.
4. Stay Away from Pesticides:
Pesticides don’t differentiate between bad and beneficial bugs. So, if you are planning to sprinkle pesticides in your garden, hold it right there. Staying away from pesticides will help you to bring bees into your garden more swiftly.
5. Plant Flowering Plants in Clumps:
If you want to clutch the attention of pollinators like bees, plant flowering plants in a row with bunches, instead of sowing them individually. We are not telling you to make your garden gathered by over plantation. Just try to put one colored plant in clumps on a side and chose another corner for a different type.
Why do You need to Attract Bees to Your Garden?
- Check the list below while you already know bees’ presence means higher quantity and tastier yield with pollination.
- Not just for our garden, by helping bees you are going to help 80% of wild plants which blindly depend on bees for their survival and the next generation.
- Few crops may be pollinated by wind, but a majority of vegetables, fruits, and nut trees thank bees. Literally, 7 out of 10 foods we eat in one way or another are linked to a bee’s activity.
- Every year in the USA, the Billions worth of crops are pollinated by bees
- They are not confined to an area, travelling miles together every day they promote diversity and sustainability. Moreover, just one bee colony can pollinate millions of flowers every day.
- Watching and promoting bee nests in your garden is calm and relaxing
- And they help to maintain a healthy climate for your garden plants and increase their produce
- We get loads of products from bees like honey, bee wax, propolis, pollen, honeycomb, and royal jelly
- If bees are not there, it would mean high production costs, less yield and which translates into a higher price tag for consumers.
- Pollination is the course that helps the flower to produce seeds and fruits with the right quantity
- While we are killing bees with pesticides, bees are still thriving and working hard and also keeping our planet green and colorful.
- Not just honey and bee products, if you could raise a healthy colony you will be able to sell the bees too. If a colony gets much crowded, with proper training you can split and create a new colony to sell to new beekeepers.
How to Attract Bees: FAQ
Do Bees Like Humming Bird Feeders?
Hummingbird feeders and bees have a close connection actually. Hummingbird feeders are something, which attract bees more quickly than even flowering plants. The sugary water used to feed hummingbirds is a treat for bees. Thus, it will be hard for you to get rid of bees from hummingbird feeders if you have one in your yard.
Does Honey Attract Bees?
Bees are attracted to honey, as honey is the food of their queen bee, adult bees, and worker bees. So, if you put a jar of fresh honey in your garden, you can lure some bees to your yard for sure.
Do Vegetable Gardens Attract Bees?
Bees are fond of some vegetables like cucumber, cantaloupe, hot pepper, gourd, etc. So, if you want to know whether you can attract bees to your garden with vegetable gardening then, the answer is yes! You just need to pick the right veggies to plant to grab their attention.
Can We Live Without Bees?
Bee is an important pollinators on this earth. Once bees are extinct, we may lose those plants that bees pollinate, and those crops, those animals, which eat those flowers or crops, and this way a hampered food chain as well. So, it will be difficult for us to live without these beneficial bugs.
How to Create an Attractive Bee-Friendly Garden:
Want to make a bee-friendly garden in your yard? Follow these simple steps and it will be tough then to get rid of those beneficial pollinator bees from your garden-
- Bees are fond of flowering plants, especially single-petal flowers. Plant such flowering plants in your garden to attract them easily
- Flowers bright in color also attract bees more quickly and engage them for a long. So, plant flowers with vivid colorful petals
- Single-petal flowers also allow them to eat more effortlessly, as they can easily collect pollen and nectar, etc. their requirement from your flowers
- They also like to sit and eat nectar from different types of plants. So, you need to choose diversity in the shade and shapes of flowering plants
- The fragrance is something you must use smartly while dealing with bees. Try to add plants to your garden, which have deep fragrances like lavender, mint, herb plants, etc.
- Plant flowering and food crop plants which produce at different times of the year. This way, you can let bees engross the whole year in your garden
- Don’t always go for flowering plantation, and plant some fruits and veggies also in your garden to attract bees, as they love the variety
- Bees like sweet tang the most, so, try to plant fruits and crops which have a sweet taste with a nice fragrance
- If you have a long wall or heavy fences, bees can’t see through them easily. So, try to plant flowering trees in your garden, especially near the wall. It will let them allure to your garden from distance as well
- Finally, try to offer them some essential belongings like water, sugar water, shelter for their wax, home-like hiding areas, etc.
As soon as bees find out that your yard is their heaven, you don’t need to put any extra effort to hold them in your garden. Bees will visit and stay in your garden willingly all through the year.
