How to help bees

Since we moved to our cottage three years ago, DH has sown a 'bee garden' - lovely meadow flowers. He keeps this going by adding seeds throughout the spring / summer season so there is always colour and a lot of variety. It is lovely to walk by and see lots of different types of bees visiting.

We take them into consideration and have lots in our garden .
We have had masses of butterflies on our tall verbenas. Those burrowing bees seem to love a section of one border and the comings and goings are entertainment whilst we sip our G&T's in the evenings. On a bench under the overhang of the shed wrapped in blankets!!

We have a Euchryphia nymansensis x nymansay which was in our garden when we bought the house. We didn't realise what it was until, having cut down loads of overgrown trees round about it, it suddenly burst into flower in August. It has big white flowers with most beautiful perfume and the bees and butterflies absolutely love it. Imagine a 30 foot tree covered in flowers and humming with bees and butterflies all over it too - wonďerful!. We have gone to town growing all kinds of insect friendly plants and have been amazed at the number of them in the garden this year, they seem to increase year by year. Lavender is a favourite, also scabious, verbena, echinacea, buddleia, thyme, marjoram and other herbs. I think there are many gardeners who are all trying to help the bees and butterflies which is really great.
DIL has set up a hive and we feel inspired to have lessons in beekeeping and set up a hive of our own. Fortunately a good friend has bees and has promised to help us. It could be a really interesting new hobby for both me and DH but we shall have to see how the lessons go! Neither of us are so very keen on being stung but I am assured that if you cover up properly it is unlikely to happen - I wonder!

Talking about bees I am waiting for the meat to finish cooking to add some vermouth and honey to the sauce and am stood here with an open jar and sticky finger!! Delicious.

We have many bee friendly plants, at the moment the sedums have been full of bees, we also have a small wild bit of garden with nettles and all sorts of things that bees like, including wildflowers.

Practically everything I plant I try to plant for insects. Except roses. But I did see a programme which showed given the chance bees will always go for indigenous plants e.g. hedgerow and field pollen. So I suppose really the thing to go for is garden type of those plants like scabious, ammi, thistle types and so forth.

They were in my roof this year, let alone my garden. The window cleaner told me when he was cleaning the fascia.
I let them alone and they have gone now.
I plant lots of geraniums, which they seem to love, as well as the Buddleia. There have been some massive white-tailed bees this year, which is weird because white-tailed are continental. The Britsh ones are buff-tailed.

After showing a real interest in bees this summer, my DGD discovered that they appreciate a 'watering hole'. A bowl part-filled with chunky gravel and topped up with water was duly installed.
Also, a dead bumble bee found on the windowsill was buried in her fairy garden with a large pearl button to mark the place.

Rosemary, sage and lavendar. All purple flowers. All attract bees, are climate resistant and useful in the kitchen too.

We have a lot of small bees or hoverflies at the moment. They like the single flowers - perennial Geraniums, marigolds and some single flowered dahlias which come up each year.

Thank you for the info everyone. It's great to see things that actually work! Purple is my favourite colour so it's an excuse to add more of it to my garden.

My neighbour's buddleja leans over the fence so we have a lot of buzz in our garden too. Love the fat bumble bees that come to visit the salvias as well.

We try to grow plants that bees like and did attempt to start a part of the garden as a 'wild flower meadow' but it didn't work very well so may try again next year. The bees went past that on their way to the verbena, beans, lavender, sage, oregano etc!
We have noticed a lot more bees this year which may be due to our lovely neighbour who is a bee-friendly person and has constructed a large insect house and made their garden extremely bee friendly. (not beehive).

My Oregano has self seeded and the bees are loving it , the mint grows all over the cement from goodness knows where and it has started to flower too , sedums are competing with it and I see the butterflies there . The ivy is full of sparrows and the bees like the ivy flowers , the birds will benefit from the ivy seeds later My DS1 thinks I have let the place go , but it is fine with me

I try to have a few shrubs that flower Jan/Feb, then on the odd sunny day you will see a brave bumble bee keeping its strength up.

At the moment, the oregano is flowering and covered in bees and hoverflies.

Right now, the bees are making the most of the flowers on my raspberry plants, the runner beans and the dahlias.

I have also had a lot of butterflies in the garden this year.
For bees and butterflies DGS sowed wild flowers which have been lovely.
We also have couple buddleia bushes.

The most bees seem to have been on our purple flowering Hebe
It was swarming with many different types of bees in or around June time.

They are still very busy on the agapanthus, despite the flowers going over at a rate of knots. We have had more red admiral butterflies than I have ever seen this year - seems it's been an exceptional summer for them.

We have a good few bees in the garden. Earlier in the Spring they were in all the fruit trees and although not very obvious to see you could hear them buzzing away. Then they went into the purple lilac and the budhlia (sp) and continued onto the lavender - I have copious amounts about the garden. It is so good to see them about. We have also had a lot of butterflies including the admiral which looks quite brown but has the most beautiful purple sheen on the top of its wings.

My DH planted flowers for the bees this year. He made a part of the garden over to meadow flowers. Very pretty, and the bees have enjoyed them.
Going off the subject rather, I saw a hummingbird hawk moth in my garden yesterday. It was enjoying the buddleia. The only other time I've seen one was when we were on holiday in Italy.

I grow flowers with an eye to bees and as chewbacca says they love purple flowers. We have verbena bonariensis, erysium bowles mauve (which has been covered in bees this summer) and, whilst it is not purple, they seem to like the steel blue eryngiums - sea holly. The cosmos which self seeded last year are only just now coming into flower - very late but I don't suppose the bees mind! I have no lavender in this garden (though DH is growing some from seed from a kit he won in a raffle at the church fate! Despite my scoffing at him, he now has half a dozen or so little plants that are coming along nicely).

Yes, I have grannymouse. I read that bees are particularly attracted to purple flowers and so I've planted alliums, echinops and swathes of lavender. Alongside the path, I've got a wide bed of cosmos and Japanese anenome and that has been a constant attraction for bees this year. I've definitely seen more bees in my garden this year, several different types of them too, from the small honey bees to the huge bumble bees.