Attracting Bees

I'm keen to start a Bee Garden on my little terrace. At the moment I have some fairly sizable window boxes with about 3 box plants in each. Are there any flowers I could plant between the box plants that would bring bees?

 

Dwarf Lavender. Bonus, you get that wonderful smell drifting into your rooms as well.

Any herbs with a strong scent would work too - such as hyssop and thyme.

 

I highly recommend Borage & another plant which I cant remember the name of...:hehe:

*Edit*
Remembered

 

Borage can get huge though! Maybe too big for a window box.

 

One I swear by for attracting Bees which also happens to be my favourite plant is Limnanthes Douglasii, more commonly known as the Poached Egg plant (http://www.archiemiles.co.uk/Images/Flowers/am_Limnanthes douglasii.jpg). Ridiculously easy to grow. OK in a container but if you plant in a border keep an eye on them, they're self seeding and will go everywhere.

 

Thyme is excellent for this role. It flowers fairly early in the year when other food supplies are still scarce. Ideal for hungry queens coming out of hibernation. There's the added bonus that after it flowers you can harvest it for use in the kitchen, and being evergreen it gives you some winter cheer.

For other ideas, have a look at the following website:
http://www.bumblebeeconservation.org/

 

I've noticed that bees tend to go for the species plants rather than hybrids. I have loads buzzing around my garden and they do like the herbs and lavender - I love them, they are so industrious.

 

This is true. Many hybrids are bred for our (human) enjoyment with no regard at all for our little buzzy buddies or anything else. I've read that many flowers, having been very selectively bred over many generations, now produce very little pollen or nectar, and what is available is harder to access due to the fact that the flower petals are too complicated for bees and other nectar feeding creatures to navigate effectively.

 

There is a program about the plight of Bees on the telly this week ... from memory it is on Thursday around 7pm or 8pm or BBC 4

 

I've seen it, Kirsten, and it is VERY worrying.

 

I have a lot of cotoneaster horizontalis around. When those tiny wee flowers appear they are full of bees and I mean in hundreds. The racket can be heard everywhere. I know there is a problem with bees but I see no shortage in my garden thank goodness. They also like heather. I have been putting huge bees out of my conservatory on a daily basis recently.

 

Escallonia - bees flock to it