If you’re a gardener or farmer, you likely know the importance of pollination. Without this process, plants won’t produce enough seeds, and many fruits and vegetables we consume will cease to exist.
In fact, over a thousand crop types require pollination, so it’s a huge help to know how to attract bees to your garden. In short, you should avoid pesticides, plant flowers of the right species and colors, and install a bee house, among other methods.
Table of Contents
- Ways to Attract Bees to Your Garden
- 1. Avoid pesticides
- 2. Use the right plants
- 3. Grow plants year-round
- 4. Set up a bee house
- 5. Place wood piles in your garden
- Can I Attract Bees With Honey?
- Can I Supply Bees With Sugar Water?
- Conclusion
Ways to Attract Bees to Your Garden
1. Avoid pesticides
Many people use pesticides to eliminate species that eat or harm plants. Unfortunately, pesticides, specifically insecticides, can kill bees.
In fact, products with neonicotinoids (namely, clothianidin, thiamethoxam, and imidacloprid) and fipronil can harm bees in the garden.
Hence, it’s crucial not to use these substances altogether. If you must use pesticides, check the labels carefully before purchasing.
At the same time, follow the tips below:
- Limit pesticide applications to evenings when bees are not active.
- Do not use dust and wettable powder insecticides. These will stick to bees easily and kill them.
- Choose chemicals that lose potency in a few hours rather than a few days or weeks.
- Spray insecticides by hand if possible, and avoid using planes to distribute the substances, especially on windy days. Otherwise, the pesticide may get on bees by accident.
2. Use the right plants
Choose native plants
To attract honey bees that are specific to your region, it’s essential to have native plants in your gardens. Bees are used to such flora and are more drawn to them.
Of course, native plants differ by region, so look up the flowers and trees that naturally grow in your city or state. You can consult the website of the Xerces Society for this.
Below is a short list of native plants in the US, sorted by region:
- California – Lady phacelia, California poppy, Cleveland sage, common sunflower, California fuchsia, Oregon grape, silver bush lupine, California buckwheat.
- Florida – Dotted horsemint, butterfly milkweed, blue mistflower, seaside goldenrod, eastern redbud, sparkleberry, buttonbush, Flatwoods plum.
- Northern Plains (Wyoming, Nebraska, etc.) – American vetch, purple prairie clover, wild bergamot, Maximilian sunflower, chokecherry.
- Southeast region (Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, etc.) – Eastern smooth penstemon, eastern rosemallow, co*ckspur hawthorn, pasture rose, maypop.
- Northeast region – Wild geranium, blue vervain, field thistle, calico aster, raspberry, ninebark, New Jersey tea.
- Albuquerque and Santa Fe – Pale evening primrose, bee balm, gayfeather, Apache plume, desert willow.
- Great Lakes region – Wild lupine, dotted mint, wingstem, bottle gentian, leadplant.
- Maritime Northwest region – Common camas, selfheal, Puget Sound gumweed, Nootka rose, Douglas spiraea, coyote brush.
- Midwest region – Wild geranium, smooth penstemon, yellow giant hyssop, wingstem, prairie willow.
- Southern Plains region – Prairie penstemon, lemon beebalm, dotted blazing star, aromatic aster, chickasaw plum.
- Mid-Atlantic region – Lanceleaf coreopsis, mountain mint, New England aster, Sneezeweed, puss* willow, basswood.
Choose the right flower colors.
What are bees attracted to? The answer to this question is “blue, purple, yellow, violet, and white flowers.” Many of the plants we listed above produce blooms with these shades, so you can take advantage of both this tip and the previous one.
It’s also best to have a variety of flowers and place them close together. This practice will save you garden space. Plus, an abundance of blossoms will stand out more to bees.
Have different flower shapes
Different bee species will favor different flower shapes for pollination.
For example, long-tongued bumblebees like flowers with deep tubes like monkshoods, but not small, flat blossoms like Angelica flowers.
Another example is honeybees, which will not fertilize buzz-pollinate plants like borage but collect nectar from open, bowl-shaped buttercups and shrub roses.
These are some reasons it’s recommended to have a variety of flowers in your yard. In general, flora with a single petal is the best.
3. Grow plants year-round
Because bees are active most of the year and stay in their hives during winter, your garden should be flourishing with flowers from March to September.
As long as this is the case, honey, carpenter, and bumble bees will come to your yard from spring to fall.
If you want to attract specific species of pollinators, look up when they’re active as well. For example, Southeastern blueberry bees will only appear when blueberries are flowering.
4. Set up a bee house
Another method for attracting bees to garden is to give them shelter. You can do this by setting up a bee house.
- Choose commercial products made of breathable materials, and avoid bamboo. This ensures the bee house can dry more easily and is less susceptible to mites.
- Secure the house so it doesn’t fall due to winds. If the house is stable, bees will also land inside it effortlessly.
- You should clean the bees’ nests after they have left. Think of the bee house like your room. If it never gets sanitized, it will eventually become inhabitable.
- The house is reserved for bee pollinators in your garden. Therefore, it’s important to keep birds from taking over the structure. You can use metal netting for this.
- Small bee houses are easier to maintain.
- Pick a product with an overhang so rain doesn’t get inside it. The nesting hole should be 6 inches long and 4 to 10 mm big.
- Bee houses should face the sun since these insects need to stay warm.
5. Place wood piles in your garden
For this method, you’ll need:
Steps to follow:
- Step 1: First, find a few logs and put them in your yard.
- Step 2: Then, drill holes of different sizes into the logs, and place the lumber pieces upright on the ground. The holes are where the bees will nest.
- Step 3: Holes with a ⅚ inch diameter, for example, will attract orchard mason bees.
- Tip: In addition to using logs, you should also put a basin of clean water in your garden and leave an area of the ground mulch-free. These measures will make your lawn more alluring to bees.
Can I Attract Bees With Honey?
Bees are attracted to honey and can even smell it. If you leave this substance out in the open, these creatures may find it and eat it.
Now, you may think you can use bee attraction to honey to get them into your garden. However, it’s not wise to carry out this method.
Honey from supermarkets can cause infections in these pollinators. Moreover, if you’re not an apiarist, you won’t know how or what to feed bees, so it’s best not to risk their well-being.
Can I Supply Bees With Sugar Water?
Suppose the bees have built their own hive in your garden, and you wonder whether you should feed them sugar water to encourage their growth.
In general, you should do so only if it’s winter and the bees have nearly no food for themselves. However, there are a few things to keep in mind:
- Feeding bees sugar syrup means they may not pollinate your plants, as there would be no need for these creatures to find sustenance anymore.
- The sugar water may attract too many bees, and while you want them in your garden, an excess of these insects is probably unpleasant.
- If you’re not an apiarist, it’s best not to feed bees. You’ll have to wonder which sugar type to use (the answer is white sugar) and think about the ratio of sugar to water (the ratio is 1:1).
Last but not least, if the bees are passing away, feeding them is useless, and you’ll likely get stung.
Conclusion
How to attract bees to your garden? If you try one or several of the methods we described, you won’t have to worry about your plants not growing due to lack of fertilization.
Plus, there will be no need to use self-pollinating fruits or rent a bee colony. If you liked this article, please share it with other people. Thanks for reading!
Furthermore, I would like to recommend to you some solutions that protect your garden from insects and animals. Please take a look at these articles:
- 6 effective methods to kill ants in vegetable garden
- 5 easy ways to get rid of stink bugs in the garden
- Keep chickens out of flower beds – 9 effective methods
FAQs
How to encourage bees and other pollinators
- Fill gardens with RHS Plants for Pollinators plants.
- Allow lawn 'weeds' to flower by cutting less often.
- Provide water for pollinators.
- Avoid using pesticides wherever possible and never spray open flowers.
- Provide nest sites for wild bees.
Bees are drawn to plants with open or flat tubular flowers with lots of pollen and nectar. A flower's scent can have particular appeal to bees, and its bright colours may lure the bees in.
What smells are bees attracted to the most? ›
Sugars: Many bees feed on the nectar from flowers. Since nectar is sweet, it makes sense that bees would be attracted to sugars and fragrances that smell flowery or sweet. That's why you may notice bees at your picnic, especially if you're drinking sugary sodas or eating fruits, such as pineapple and watermelon.
What attracts bees to plants? ›
Single flowers, left, provide more food for pollinators than double flowers, which are filled with petals. Choose blue, purple and yellow: Bees find blue, purple and yellow flowers most appealing. Flat or shallow blossoms, such as daisies, zinnias, asters and Queen Anne's lace, will attract the largest variety of bees.
Why attract bees to your garden? ›
Bees provide us with an invaluable service by pollinating the plants we grow. Whether big or small, there are things every garden can do to help them.
What food attracts bees the most? ›
A: Honey bees are attracted to sugars, and may be especially attracted to liquid sweets. This is why they may be seen at your picnic or backyard buzzing around your watermelon, soft drinks or frozen treats.
What color attracts bees the most? ›
They can also see blue-green, blue, violet, and “bee's purple.” Bee's purple is a combination of yellow and ultraviolet light. That's why humans can't see it. The most likely colors to attract bees, according to scientists, are PURPLE, VIOLET and BLUE.
Does sugar water attract bees? ›
Bees are just as attracted to sugar as we are, which is why they're such a nuisance to picnickers everywhere. To bees, the sweetness of sugar water means it is full of energy, and they can use that energy to produce honey for their hive.
What attracts bees at night? ›
Bees active at night gather nectar and pollen from flowers which are open at night time, and offer generous amounts of pollen and nectar. There is far less competition from other bees, butterflies and other insects for nectar and pollen from this night time nectar source.
What color flowers attract bees? ›
Bees' color preference drives flowers to evolve a blue glow
Many wild bees prefer flowers in the violet-blue range—in part because these blossoms tend to produce high volumes of nectar.
Use honey or sugar water as bait.
You don't need much; a thin layer will be enough to attract bees. Bees will be attracted to the sweetness and won't be able to escape, eventually dying in the trap. Save the lives of bees by only using honey or sugar water.
What noises attract bees? ›
Studies have shown that bees can detect the air-particle movements associated with airborne sounds and can detect sound frequencies up to about 500 Hz. This means that bees are attracted to music with a 250-500 Hz frequency as it is reminiscent of the sounds they produce in the hive.
Does lemon juice attract bees? ›
The smell of lemons can attract bees, but not because they're angry — quite the opposite. Lemon smells like an attractive pheromone that bees release to help bring foragers home, and can be likely to summon additional inquisitive bees.
Does vinegar attract bees? ›
Vinegar is a great solution for deterring bees. Unlike chemical deterrents, vinegar doesn't contain any harsh substances, and it doesn't harm most plants. To make a homemade vinegar solution, mix together equal parts water and vinegar in a spray bottle.
How do you attract a colony of bees? ›
Bee hunters can also set out a bait station. By placing a small dish of sugar syrup in the open, people can attract scout bees to stop and feed, and then watch them fly toward home. With luck, the scout bee will soon return with other foragers she has recruited from her hive.
How do I attract solitary bees to my garden? ›
They need loose, crumbly and exposed soil or sandy banks. So, try to leave patches of bare earth in places that catch the sunshine. If you have sandy banks these are great! Just leave them undisturbed, or even try starting a few inviting holes by poking a pencil into the bank.
Which flower attracts bees? ›
Coneflower is one of the main attractors of bees. As it blooms for a more extended period from mid-summer to fall, it provides nectar to bees for a longer time. Bees love this wildflower as bees also forage for the pollen produced by plants.
What fruit do bees love? ›
Many types of trees including plums, apples, crabapples, peaches, and pears are good food sources for bees. Varieties come in fruiting and fruitless types. Many fruiting varieties need bees to produce fruit.
How do you make a bee attractant? ›
All you need is ¼ cup of sugar, lemon juice and a cup of water! I have seen some recipes that add in liquid dish soap but I found that it was way too hard to clean once the soap dried on the bottom of the trap. I have had just as much success with the recipe below.
Can I use honey to attract bees? ›
It's basically sugar and it's what the bees use to make honey. Looking at the facts, it's actually no surprise that bees feel attracted to sugary stuff. Anything that they can associate with a flower, they'll fly to.
Bees are attracted to bright colors — but not red.
When bees get angry, they tend to attack dark colors. This is because their natural predator, the bear, is large and dark. Tip to avoid stings: Avoid wearing brightly colored clothing, especially in the blue and purple color families.
What color do bees dislike? ›
Darker colors such as red appear black to bees, and since black is the absence of color bees are not naturally attracted to plants with red hues. Also, some tubular flowers are not attractive to bees because the shape is not conducive to pollination. Choosing red plants will discourage bees in the garden.
What smell do bees hate? ›
Bees also have a distaste for lavender oil, citronella oil, olive oil, vegetable oil, lemon, and lime. These are all topical defenses you can add to your skin to keep bees away. Unlike other flying insects, bees are not attracted to the scent of humans; they are just curious by nature.
Does salt water attract bees? ›
Though bees are often lured in by the smell of chemicals homeowners use to treat and clean chlorinated pools, they're also attracted to salty water that is rich in the minerals they need.
Do bees like Coca Cola? ›
Sodas are full of high fructose corn syrup which is a sugar. When a bee finds a trash can full of half-drunk sodas, it thinks it has hit the sugar water jackpot. The bee loads up, rushes back to its hive, tells all of its sisters, and everyone makes a beeline for the trash can or recycling bin.
Are bees attracted to bananas? ›
Bees and banana's
Apparently the alarm pheromone smells a bit like banana [5]. The alarm is released when a bee stings and will attract other bees to this location and act defensively. So, the smell of banana's might attract a group of angry bees.
Do lights attract bees? ›
at night any bright light will attract bees and other things like moths because it acts like the sun to them. if it is happening at night, this will disrupt their day and night schedule.
How do bees see humans? ›
Rather than specifically recognizing people, these nectar-feeding creatures view us as "strange flowers," the researchers say. And while they might not be able to identify individual humans, they can learn to distinguish features that are arranged to look like faces.
Do LED lights affect bees? ›
All insects, including bees, are drawn to cooler LED tones like blue or green light. However, they are less attracted to LED lights that give off warm tones on the light spectrum. If you want to detract bees, then consider using LED lights with higher wavelengths like red.
Do bees like white or black? ›
Starting with the ability of the bees to distinguish between black and white, we have found that they are not interested in black or white.
Mid-season flowers such as anise hyssop, black-eyed Susans, coneflowers, catmint, cleome, penstemon, globe thistle, milkweed, monarda (bee balm), coreopsis, daisies, phlox, gaillardia, and yarrow are bee magnets.
What bees are attracted to sugar? ›
Just like bumblebees and honeybees, carpenter bees are attracted to sugar (e.g., nectar) for energy.
Why do bees follow you? ›
If you look or smell like a flower, you are more likely to attract the attention of a bee. They love the smell of some sunscreens, shampoos, perfumes and aftershaves. They also love flowery prints and shiny jewelry and buckles.
Can bees hear humans? ›
The short answer is: No, bees do not have ears, however, they are able to pick up sound, so yes, in a sense they can 'hear' but not through the use of ears.
Can a bee detect fear? ›
Bees don't smell fear. However, they detect fear pheromones released when an animal or human is afraid. Essentially, their olfactory system enables them to collect scents and establish their meaning. So, even though they don't smell fear directly, they have a keen sense of smell for perceived threats.
Can I attract bees with sugar? ›
Bees are twice as attracted to sugar syrup than they are to honey. Adult bees live longer when eating sucrose compared to honey. Economically it does not make sense to feed honey back to bee colonies when sugar is a fraction of the cost.
What do bees prefer to eat or drink? ›
Bees feed on and require both nectar and pollen. The nectar is for energy and the pollen provides protein and other nutrients. Most pollen is used by bees as larvae food, but bees also transfer it from plant-to-plant, providing the pollination services needed by plants and nature as a whole.
How do I increase bee population in my garden? ›
Planting a pollinator garden helps honeybees immensely. Bees rely on the nectar and pollen from nearby flowers for their survival; when flowers are scarce, bees can starve. By planting a pollinator garden, you're ensuring that bees have a source of food year round — just be sure your garden is pesticide free.
How do you attract bees to an empty hive? ›
Plus, pheromone lures are very effective at attracting bees to your hive (5). “… a bait hive with a scent lure can be five times more likely to attract a swarm than one without a lure….” Another option that is popular with beekeepers is lemongrass essential oil (6).
What color attracts bees? ›
They can also see blue-green, blue, violet, and “bee's purple.” Bee's purple is a combination of yellow and ultraviolet light. That's why humans can't see it. The most likely colors to attract bees, according to scientists, are PURPLE, VIOLET and BLUE.
Does sugar water attract bees? Yes, sugar water or sugar syrup attracts bees, but that's not a good thing in this case. Bees will go for the sugar water instead of the nectar in your flowers, which defeats the purpose of attracting bees in the first place. 4.
Will honey attract bees? ›
Bees require the sweet liquid of nectar to keep their energy up. It's basically sugar and it's what the bees use to make honey. Looking at the facts, it's actually no surprise that bees feel attracted to sugary stuff. Anything that they can associate with a flower, they'll fly to.
What is the best bee attractant? ›
Because honey bees are attracted to the sweet grassy and lemony fragrance, we have found that lemongrass essential oil is an effective swarm lure. It can encourage a swarm of honey bees to move into a cavity such as a Nucleus (Nuc) Box or hive.
How do you encourage a beehive naturally? ›
Fill your yard with flowers
Choose a diversity of native species of all shapes and sizes. Plant big patches (think bull's eyes) of each for more efficient foraging (less distance for bees to travel). Mow your lawn less and avoid herbicides that kill nectar-producing plants such as clover, creeping thyme and dandelions.
How do you make sugar water for bees? ›
A one-to-one mixture of sugar and water — measured either by weight or by volume — provides the energy your bees need to stimulate brood rearing and start drawing out foundation. For each gallon of sugar syrup, measure out 10 2/3 cups sugar and 10 2/3 cups of water.
