I've had a single plant with over 30,000 honey bees visiting an hour - By far my bees prefer our honey plant when we are extracting and the exhaust fan isn't on -
Next after that has to be basswood in July. Not much else blooming and they hammer those trees. Good quality nectar - great honey
R Dewhurst, I know the thistle doesn't look all that great when it takes over, but the thistle I have in my area, I think it is Canadian thistle, is an excellent honey plant and provides lots of nectar after the clovers are about done. John
I do allow the globe thistle to grow, but this thistle is short and very invasive. not much of a flower to it. I did save some of the globe thistle seeds to plant though.
i think bees like milkweed most. I have judge that they mostly like to sit in this flower. Honey bees sit many tyoes of flower to drink necter for making honey.
Yellow Crownbeard, a nasty weed here in Virginia, is teeming with bees in the late summer/early fall. I think most of my winter stores came from this weed. Funny to think that a couple of years ago, I waged war with herbicides against this plant. I won some battles, but yellow crownbeard won the war!
Interesting thread....I tried some different bee plantings last summer, one that was very successful was coriander...I have never seen the bees so frenetic as when they were working it, kind of like they had just drunk Red Bull. It's easy to grow and self seeds a lot in year 2. Sunflowers were very good as they filled a gap here in September, but lots of bumble competition. Borage is great and I got some bulk seed for this year. You can jazz up your salads with the flowers too. This year I am planning bulk sowings of buckwheat, sweet clover and alfalfa - and a lot more coriander from jars from seed I saved from 2012.
Caution: Borage will spread very quickly, and gets large and unwieldy if not cut back. Usually someone with a plant will be willing to collect seed or send seedlings along to you. -Sarah
Garlic chives. It may not be their favorite but it does get throngs of them. I plant it everywhere because it blooms in our hot, humid summers when hardly anything else is. And it may not make great honey...but supers can be pulled beforehand.
I don't see Buckwheat mentioned much here.
Planted some last year for cover crop on old garden areas and the bees were thick in
it for weeks. The buzz coming from the buckwheat was amazing.
try J L Hudsman seeds its a great place to buy bulk and they carry seeds you have a hard time finding other places. I am ordering 3 different types milkweed, lemon balm and others on the list of plants for bees
My bee love my loquat tree. It blooms when its starting to cool off and there is nothing else blooming. Also the Chinese tallow tree. Its a very invasive tree but bees cover them.
Thanks honey!!! Are we the only ones on the gulf coast on this topic. A lot of the plants they are talking about will not grow in 100% humidity(sp?). I think my kids have stopped growing b/c of this too. Just kidding. We over come it by eating. Eating makes us happy.
Aaagggg!!!! I just looked up what you where talking about. Ligustrum is blooming now right? There are 5 50 yr old ones in my yrd now killing us very slowly. Even with eating our own honey my family gets no relief from the runny noses ect. You are correct in that every pollinator is on these trees(bushes) so it is the law of the most high queen bee(me) that they stay.
Last year I had a couple tomatillo plants growing in my garden and they were thick with honeybees. I've planted more this year since they seemed to like them so much. Plus you can make fantastic salsa with them!
Crimson is the correct one for honey bees. I don't know the scientific name. Plant it around the time wheat is planted in the fall. It will bloom next spring. This year it started blooming around April 20th here. It is an annual, but it can re-seed itself.
I have 6 'Blue Mist Spirea' bushes in my backyard alone and another 4 in the front. They are a fairly xeric plant that produces anywhere from a light blue to almost black/blue flower in summer that honey bees love, love, love! After the bees hit them up they will produce a lot of seed and these bushes will spread like crazy if given the right conditions. They will also grow large if allowed, but honey bees go crazy on them here in Colorado.
They also seem to like the Salvias too, especially the dark purple ones, but they come in a lot of different colors. Again, another very xeric plant. One that needs very little water. Once they are established you basically don't bother watering them or they will get real leggy and flop over to the point that it looks like someone sat right in the middle of the plant. Otherwise they are a beautiful addition to any garden or yard.
California Poppies are very easy to grow, they reseed themselves almost to the point of being a weed and the bees love them.
Another xeric plant that the bees love is Lambs Ear. It grows wild here in the fields and it produces these long shafts of pink flowers. And rabbits don't like to eat these plants. So it's a win, win, win!
And of course Galardia is super popular as well. Again, xeric, its very easy to grow from seed and comes in a lot of different colors.
I live on the plains of Colorado and water here is a real issue. Xeric plants are a must have
As for bee balm, bumble seem to like them best, but I have seen a few honey bees give it a go.
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