Creating A Great Bee Garden

The most important element of a bee garden is the types of flowers it contains. Not all flowers are attractive to bees, and some flowers are much more attractive than others.

The more of these attractive flowers planted in the same place, the better! One of the most interesting results of our research is that bees have preferences, not only for the flowers they pollinate, but for the gardens they visit. Gardens with 10 or more species of attractive plants attracted the largest number of bees. In these kinds of gardens, even those plants known to be less attractive, received higher levels of visits.

The composition of the garden is also important. The more attractive gardens tended to be less manicured, allowing solitary native bees, which make their individual nests in the ground or in trees, to make their nests without disturbance. If you like, bee nests can also be made. If they are placed in a shady area of the garden, they may be used by the bees but they aren’t needed to have a successful bee garden.

Bee gardens should not experience pesticides and should contain large patches of like flowers planted in close proximity to one another. For our purposes, it is necessary that each patch of flowers (each species) is at least 1.5m x 1.5m (for frequency counts). Ideally, the patches will be even larger, allowing the observer to make counts on several different patches (1.5m x 1.5m each) of the same species. Contrary to how it may seem, bees are actually very shy. If an observer spends too long in one place, hovering over the same patch of flowers, the bees will gradually begin to move on to other flowers where they won’t be bothered. To facilitate counts, it is sometimes a good idea to create little paths through the garden so that all patches are accessible to the observer.

Labeling each patch/species with their Latin scientific name is extremely important. Unidentified plants can be taken to a local nursery (the employees at Berkeley Horticultural Nursery are especially knowledgeable) to be identified and then labeled. If you like, you can begin your own collection of plant vouchers but this is not necessary.

Finally, it is important to plant flowers that bloom successively over the spring, summer, and fall seasons in order to provide pollen and nectar resources to the native bees of all seasons. As some attractive plants die out, others will take their place to ensure ongoing attractiveness to seasonal bees. It will be interesting to watch how the frequencies change in the garden as new species bloom and others fade away!

We have found that the following plants will provide a year-long supply of pollen and nectar for native California bees in the San Francisco Bay Area. We use these plants in four experimental gardens located at the University of California, Berkeley campus, a Lucas Valley school garden (Marin Co.), the Randall Museum in San Francisco, and the Livermore Community garden (Contra Costa Co.).