BEE Friendly Honey Bee Pollinator Garden

Planting a honey bee and pollinator garden can be satisfying, rewarding, and enjoyable. It can produce higher yielding edible harvests for you, as well as being a valuable food source for insects. So many good and wonderful things, all happening right in your very own sunny and beautiful pollinator paradise!

Honey Bees will visit 2 million flowers in order to produce one pound of honey. They need to collect nectar and pollen as soon as plants start blooming, until the first frost. It takes a wide variety of plants to support a healthy hive of 40,000 to 60,000 honey bees.

General Gardening Advice for your Honey Bee and Pollinator Garden

1. Don’t use pesticides. Most pesticides are not selective. You are killing off beneficial insects along with the pests. If you must use a pesticide, start with the least toxic one and follow the directions very carefully!
2. Choose a variety of plants that bloom all throughout the growing seasons for your soil type and weather conditions. Keep in mind that bees prefer a sunny location sheltered from wind. Plant fruiting trees, and shrubs their blooms are a good source of nectar and pollen.
3. Select a wide variety of flower colors, shapes, and plant types. Bees are attracted to blue, purple, violet, white and yellow flowers, but will also go to other colors.
4. Plant flowers in mass of the same species for ease of bee and pollinators locating them.
5. Design your garden with native perennials which will naturalize, and you’ll be able to share.