10 Best Nectar Plants for Bees

by Alex Kountry
Updated on

Have you noticed that bees are disappearing at a high-speed rate?

All around the world, the population of bees have been suffering a reducing rapidly.

Everyone in the world will genuinely suffer if these bees go extinct.

This is why we want to talk about the 10 best nectar plants for bees.

These plants would be great to plant in your yard and your garden.

This way, bees would have a lot to feed on and have all the resources they need to grow and boost their hives.

List of the 10 best nectar plants for bees

Best Nectar Plants for Bees

1. Lavender

If you want to get a nectar plant that would attract your bees, lavender plants are one of the best around.

Being a garden favorite, it would get smothered by your bees with haste.

Experienced beekeepers have stated that lavender wins and deserves to be first on this list.

  • It mixes the scent and the power of its beautiful purple flowers to attract several bees.

It would be best to plant these lavender plants into soil that is correctly drained in very sunny positions to get great results.

Lavender doesn’t enjoy sitting on wet ground at all.

Lavender has light blue-purple flowers, which have a great fragrance adored by butterflies and bees.

Related: Here is an article I wrote on best spring flowers for bees

2. Sunflowers

Bees love sunflowers because of the presence of a lot of nectar.

Sunflowers are fantastic to teach your young ones at home gardening.

Your bees would love sunflower plants because it has cherry blooms with various heights and colors that suit every bee’s taste.

If you want to attract many bees to your sunflower nectar plant, you should try growing orange or yellow sunflowers.

Make sure you avoid the red flowering trendy sunflowers.

Bees do not like these types of sunflowers.

The yellow and orange ones are the best you should get.

3. Chives

You could grow chive plants because their young leaves have a lot of nectar which your bees would enjoy feeding on.

This adds to a unique excellent taste that your bees would use in gathering nectar and creating honey.

These chives are very easy to grow using a container or a window box.

These chives have clear shiny purple and pink flowers, which bees genuinely love.

The chives available inside the flowers would attract leafcutter bees, mason bees, honeybees, and bumblebees.

The chives have a lot of nectar in them.

4. Foxglove

It would be best if you tried planting some foxglove in your yard or your garden.

This would bring in droves of bees to your yard because foxglove has an abundance of nectar which bees love.

It would be best if you planted common foxgloves inside semi-shaded or shady areas.

Foxgloves have freckled interiors which serve as runways that guide bees that land on the lower lips of the foxglove blooms.

5. Cosmos

These are very simple to grow summer flowers with a lot of nectar that your bees would love.

Bees love their vast blooms, which look like daisies.

These are borne using profusions from warm months.

You could directly sow cosmos into the ground, and they work perfectly when it is time to fill gaps in the summer borders.

These flowers look great if you plant them in your cottage gardens, especially at summer borders.

They also add heights to the back of your bedding displays.

For your bees to truly enjoy this nectar plant, you should deadhead the plant regularly.

This helps bring brand-new cosmos blooms.

6. Rosemary

If you want to plant a nectar herb in your yard or your garden, make sure you add in some rosemary.

Add in some rosemary because bees love them for their high amounts of nectar.

It has needle-like leaves, which bees also love because the flowers of rosemary are beautifully blue.

Rosemary is a nectar plant that can easily survive in a drought.

It works very well when you want to create a garden with low maintenance around a barbecue area.

This begins to flower in seasons like spring, and it could continue all until winter.

It draws in pollinators like bees when all other plants around are dormant.

7. Verbena

Bees love feeding on Verbena as a result of the high amount of nectar it has.

It has several clusters of tiny purple flowers which bees love to gather and feed on.

It blooms to create ample amounts of nectar for various pollinators like butterflies and bees.

It grows under the sun. It would be best to plant it at places where the lanky stems wouldn’t be disturbed by various wind sources.

Verbena remains a great choice if you want to add in some drama and a lot of height at the back of your gardening borders.

Then again, your bees would love this addition to your garden.

8. Dahlia

These days, a lot of people are trying out dahlias because they have so much nectar.

We know bees love a lot of nectar and pollen.

The good news is, dahlias have showy flowers which bloom in the autumn season.

If you want your bees to enjoy plants with nectar at a time when other nectar plants are dormant, you should get some dahlias in your garden.

The philosophical idea here is to grow varieties of single flowers.

The complex petal structures with fancy types present delicate maze routes for bees which they enjoy.

Bees enjoy the adventure it would take to pollinate from one dahlia flower to the next.

You could try the Bishop of Leicester (which consists of some pink flowers with golden/brown centers) or Moonfire that keeps some beautiful show of yellow and gold flowers at the top of dark foliage.

9. Buddleja

If you have a butterfly bush or you want to grow a butterfly bush, this is the type of plant you should have in your yard or your garden.

This nectar plant for your bees have tortoiseshells flock and red admirals.

Bees love the properties of Buddleja. Bee eggs consume the fragrant sense spray of the Buddleja flowers during calm, warm nights in summer.

Buddleja is a fast-growing nectar plant. Even if you neglect it, it grows beautifully like you’re taking care of it with all of your time.

10. Crocus

There are seasons or times of the year that several other nectar or pollen-bearing plants remain dormant.

This doesn’t happen to crocus.

It is one of the best nectar/pollen-producing plants which bees enjoy.

Queen bees love consuming nectar and pollinating crocus after their hibernation periods.

You can grow them in container bulbs. They would suffice to keep your bees busy till other plants in your yard or garden start blooming again.

Experienced beekeepers recommend that you should grow out some normal snowdrops.

These snowdrops are also known as Galanthus nivalis.

They serve as a source of nectar and pollen for baby bees in the hive.

Little tips to make your garden attractive for bees that want to suck some nectar

  • It would be best if you grew single petal flowers.

These flowers would allow bees to access nectar and pollen easily.

  • Forget about flowers with varieties or double petals

These types of flowers stress bees because the nectar of pollen is usually absent or hard to gain access to.

  • Make sure you don’t use chemical pesticides on your flowering nectar plants.

It would be best if you tried using bug hotels. This provides hibernation and nesting habitats for bees.

  • Regularly deadhead flowers

This brings more blooms to your flowers.

Conclusion

How does your garden look presently?

The 10 best nectar plants for bees listed above would provide your bees with all of the nectar and pollen they would need all through their life cycle.

These nectar plants would attract a lot of bees and keep them satisfied.

You can plant them in your yard or your garden, sit back and watch your bees enjoy from one nectar plant to the next.

Photo of author

About the author

Alex Kountry

Alex Kountry is the founder of HayFarmGuy and has been a backyard farmer for over 10 years. Since then he has decided to write helpful articles that will help you become a better backyard farmer and know what to do. He also loves to play tennis and read books

Newsletter

HayFarmGuy - Get Info About Farm Animals in Your Inbox