8 Tips to Bring Bees to Your Garden

Cover of Time Magazine

Pollinators of all types are under attack, in part due to the uneducated over-use of pesticides by home owners, and even mainstream Time Magazine is discussing this problem.

Crabapple LandscapExperts offer 8 tips to bring bees into the garden.

1. Plant all shapes and sizes of flowers

2. Plant every color of flower

3. Group flowers together for a bee-alert

4. Native pollinators prefer native flowers, but introduced honeybees like flowers from Europe, so plant a wide assortment

5. Because of metro-Atlanta's long, mild growing season, make sure to stagger bloom-seasons throughout the year. Provide the earliest bloomers in Jan-Feb all the way through the late bloomers in Nov-Dec. to provide pollen and nectar in all four seasons 

Bee with loaded pollen sacs 

6. Locate beds and containers of flowers in sheltered, sunny spots for bees' ease

7. Add some shallow drinking puddles or trickling water for bees to drink

8. Decrease the use of pesticides! Many of them indiscriminately kill beneficial bees as well as harmful pest insects that are supposed to be the target

Digging Deeper
The University of Georgia Entomology Department offers a lot of info on honey bees, including "Establishing a Bee Pasture".