Plants to attract bees

[Pat]

I saw this poster of plants that will attract bees to the garden.

 

[Trellum]

This is not the first info graph on this topic to ever be posted here, but is definitely one of the prettiest ones I have seen. So pretty! Thanks a lot for sharing

 

[claudine]

I agree with Trellum, it's a very pretty graph. Also, it's very informative. If I ever have my own garden, I'll plant all those plants in it. Bees are lovely creatures

 

[IcyBC]

I don't see wild aster on the list! I have them in my garden and it is blooming at the moment! You can't believe how many different types of bees are on the flowers everyday

 

[InvasiveCreeper]

We need to think about the monarch butterflies too. Plant milkweed!

 

[sixxup]

I have bee hives in my garden and am very keen when planting flowery plants. I can see that I miss some plants in my garden. Thanks for sharing the chart, I want to have all those plants in my garden.

 

[Mint]

In my country we have professional bee keepers who well understand the game of attraction. These are people that are so knowledgeable about plants that have bees swarming in that they can get attract a swarm by merely putting a twig of the plant in the hive. I might recognise some of the plants on your colorful chart.

 

[LouisFerdinand]

There was a bee going to various flowers of a bright orange marigold I had planted in the summer.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

I have been a beekeeper, not currently. There are quite a selection of honey bees around here. When a huge number of bees were wiped out by disease in the early twentieth century people thought it was an actual extinction and started importing and breeding foreign bees. It wasn't , and it is amazing how quickly hives can regenerate in the absence of competition, but the descendants of those 'special' bees are still about, ranging from yellow on yellow 'Sussex Goldens' to almost black Carpathian bees, they are vicious, you don't open the hive unless it's very sunny, the goldens are nice and gentle by contrast. Anyway, it's worth looking at those bees, they are not all honey bees. There are several sorts of bumble bee in almost any garden. Look out for the great big queens at the beginning of the year when they are first establishing their nest and feeding it themselves, as soon as the first of their young are capable of working they stay home and lay eggs. Nearly all the bumbles are bigger than the honey bees, but there are also solitary bees that look fairly similar to the honey bees. I expect you have seen those bundles of tubes people put for them to nest in, I drill a few holes in fence posts which does the same job. Others make their own holes, I have been called out to a cottage built with lime mortar where there were loads of masonry bees, each with their own hole in the mortar.
Of course bees are not the only insects attracted, I would love to see an illustration of all the flies, beetles, hoverflies, wasps, butterflies, moths and others that come for a sip of nectar.