Ways To Make Your Garden More
Bee-Friendly
10
Choices like coneflowers, black-eyed Susan, sunflowers, and lavender are some of bees’ favorite treats, containing pollen and nectar that they love.
Ensure There Are Always Flowering Plants
Some picks for spring include bluebells, crocuses, and dandelions, while early summer will bring blooms from hollyhock, poppies, sweet peas, and thyme.
Along with ensuring you have flowers blooming throughout the growing season, it’s important to maintain plants and flowers of different sizes.
A shallow birdbath works well, as does a bucket or planter with a couple of inches of water in it.
Eliminate Pesticides
While you might use pesticides to protect your garden from unwanted bugs and other critters, they’re unfortunately toxic to bees as well.
An ideal bee shelter could simply be made from an upturned planter or another container with holes drilled in it to provide easy access.
Make a Bee Hotel
You can opt to purchase premade bee houses, or make your own as an easy DIY project.
Leave a patch of earth unplanted and untended to give them somewhere to create ground nests. Allow some fallen tree branches to stay where they are. When raking leaves in the fall, make sure to leave some behind for bees to use as temporary habitats.
Clover, dandelions, creeping Charlie, and bee balm should all be left to grow if possible.
Allow Vegetables to Bolt
Once a plant has fully bolted, it’s likely not salvageable, but if you leave it as is, bees will enjoy the blossoms.