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Which plant in *your* garden do bees best like?

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  • Jason-3Jason-3 Posts: 391
    Lavenders, bowles mauve, walkers low, delphiniums, lupins and broad beans !! 
  • Busy-LizzieBusy-Lizzie Posts: 24,043
    Salvia "Blauhugel" is always covered in bees, so is the lavender. Raspberries are fruiting now but they were covered in bees when they were in flower. Recently the lime tree was humming.
    Dordogne and Norfolk. Clay in Dordogne, sandy in Norfolk.
  • ButtercupdaysButtercupdays Posts: 4,546
    I second Cotoneaster, not just horizontalis, you can hear them from yards away! They like Pulmonaria here too (but there's not so much to choose from then) and Bowle's mauve as well. Not many on my broad beans though, though one (not the same one!) comes every year to work my fuchsias in the greenhouse. Mine are all bumbles, don't think I've ever seen a honey bee.
  • Janie BJanie B Posts: 963
    Cerinthe and lavender atm, shortly to be joined by echinops...
    Lincolnshire
  • NollieNollie Posts: 7,529
    Nepeta, Salvia, Geraniums, Rosemary, all covered. Nothing beats the Nispero tree in flower though, they completely swarm it and, as a dear Polish friend says, get drunk as a 🐝 which in practice appears to mean totally slaughtered.
    Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
  • Mark56Mark56 Posts: 1,653
    edited June 2018
    Oh & I forgot the Pyracantha in May and now the Privet flowers (the bee keepers say it makes the honey taste foul).. I let it flower before cutting the hedge as there's also still nesting birds at this time of year. 
  • SkandiSkandi Posts: 1,723
    Borage, the honey bees go mad for it from Now until September, the bumbles seem to prefer the snowberries, those they cover in love.
  • Victoria SpongeVictoria Sponge Posts: 3,502
    First year for me growing phacelia and borage and while the phacelia is popular with bumbles I haven't seen any kind of bee on the borage yet. 

    I wondered if something was drawing the honeybees away (maybe lime trees as others have said) they live in my chimney, and since the alliums and geraniums faded have started zooming off elsewhere.

    Cotoneaster and centaurea Montana popular here before buds even open and everyone loves geranium phaeum. Astrantias popular with bumbles this year but not usually.

    If anyone likes hoverflies, they are zipping around the campanulas (various) and the single and loose flowering roses.
    Wearside, England.
  • SuesynSuesyn Posts: 664
    Welsh poppies, and if you keep deadheading them they flower all summer.
  • AuntyRachAuntyRach Posts: 5,291
    In my garden it is the Ceanothus in late Spring and Lavender (English) in Summer. This year I noticed the bees went mad for my Hebe topiaria when it flowered.
    My garden and I live in South Wales. 
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