You don’t need a huge garden to help bees at home. Yards, balconies, and even doorsteps with just a couple of plant pots can help the UK’s bees to cling on. Gardening for bees is all about using your space wisely and bearing bees’ needs in mind when you plan your outdoor space. Here are our top tips.

Plant bee-friendly flowers and herbs

Unfortunately, not all plants are bee-friendly. Many of the blooms available in garden centres have been bred purely for their looks and, as a result, have double or multi-petalled flowers which block bees’ access to nectar. These flowers can even lack nectar and pollen completely. So what are the best bee-friendly plants?

Native plants

Bees, like many of the UK’s insects, evolved alongside our native wildflowers for millions of years, so adding them to your garden is a great way to help bees thrive. Some of their favourites include:

• Scabious
• Betony
• Comfrey
• Viper’s bugloss
• Knapweeds
• Thistles
• Bugle
• Heathers
• Ivy
• Ox-eye daisies

The good thing about native flowers is that they’re also relatively hardy and tend to be more resistant to pests.

Nectar-rich herbs

As well as giving you a ready supply of delicious ingredients for your cooking, home-grown herbs are brilliant for bees. When they flower, they’re rich in nectar and attract some of the most common garden bumblebees and solitary bees, including red-tailed bumblebees and red mason bees. Herbs are also some of the best bee-friendly plants for pots, window boxes and planters – ideal if your outdoor space is on the smaller side. Try these:

• Rosemary: Flowers in spring and may continue throughout the year. Add to pasta sauces and roast potatoes.
• Thyme: Flowers in summer. Delicious in risotto.
• Chives: Flowers in spring and summer. A tasty addition to potato salad.
• Marjoram: Flowers in summer and early autumn. Sprinkle onto pizza or stir into salads.
• Sage: Flowers in late spring and summer. Works beautifully with butternut squash.
• Lemon balm: Flowers in summer. Use it to liven up pesto.

A range of flowering periods

Different plants flower at different times of the year. Bees rely on nectar all year-round, so when gardening for bees try to include plants with a range of flowering periods. This way there will be a ready supply of nectar and pollen through every season.

Different flower shapes

Did you know that different bees have tongues of different lengths? This means they can’t all reach the nectar from the same flowers. Long-tongued species like the garden bumblebee, for example, love delving deep into tubular flowers including foxgloves and honeysuckle. Shorter-tongued species like the white-tailed bumblebee seek out flowers like borage, with easily accessible nectar.

Rethink weeds

Did you know that some of the most important bee-friendly plants are also the ones that many people try to eradicate? We’re talking about flowers like dandelions and clovers. Dandelions in particular are some of the first flowers to bloom, offering a vital source of early nectar for solitary bees that have just hatched and queen bumblebees that have woken from hibernation. When they emerge, these bees desperately need to fill up on nectar and, when they’ve made a nest, gather pollen stores to feed their first brood, so please let your ‘weeds’ lie.

Get a bee hotel

Bee hotels offer vital nesting areas for solitary bees, which don’t live in colonies like bumblebees. Solitary bees nest alone in a range of tube-like structures, which makes bee hotels great garden homes for them. Red mason bees and leafcutter bees are the species most likely to book a room in your bee hotel.

The best bee hotel is quite often the simplest: a container filled with different-sized hollow tubes, such as cut lengths of bamboo. It’s really easy to make your own, but think carefully about where you place it. The best position is a south or east-facing wall or fence that gets plenty of morning sun, about 1.5m off the ground. Push the tubes back against the back of the hotel so they’re protected from any wind and rain.

The main thing to bear in mind with a bee hotel is that once you put one up, it needs looking after to make sure it isn’t taken over by parasites or diseases. Take the bee hotel down in October and pop it somewhere it will stay cool and dry through winter, like a shed or garage. Put it back out in spring and replace the container or its nest holes at least every two years.

Go chemical-free

Sadly, a range of pesticides containing neonicotinoids (proven to kill bees) are still approved for home and garden use. What’s more, they’re readily available in most garden centres and DIY shops, in bottles as well as in many of the plants on sale. It’s really important to source plug plants that haven’t been grown using pesticides where possible.

One of the best things you can do for the bees in your garden is to put down pesticides and go chemical-free. By planting wisely, encouraging natural predators and using physical barriers, you’ll soon be able to manage your outdoor space without harming bees, insects and other wildlife.

How to go chemical-free in your garden

Choose peat-free compost and plants

Did you know that by using peat-free compost and plants you can save not only the bees in your garden, but bees elsewhere in the UK and even the world?

The peat used in garden compost is extracted from peat bogs. These precious wild places, once common across the UK, are now rare habitats that are sadly becoming even scarcer. When healthy, they’re bursting with fascinating plants like carnivorous sundews, beautiful heathers and peat-forming sphagnum mosses; they buzz with rare bees, butterflies and dragonflies; they’re home to wonderful animals like curlews and adders; and they store huge amounts of carbon and help prevent flooding. But when peat bogs are drained and their plants and grasses ripped out so the peat beneath can be dug up for compost, the entire landscape is changed and we lose all of the wild creatures that depend on the peat bog for survival.

Thankfully there are some fantastic alternatives to peat-based compost out there. Some DIY shops and garden centres are now stocking these, but not all of them, so if you can’t find any, don’t be afraid to ask for it. You can also buy peat-free compost online from brands like Dalefoot Compost and SylvaGrow.

Try to source peat-free plants, too. Unless they’re labelled as peat-free then they’ll have been grown in a peat-based compost, regardless of whether they have an ‘insect-friendly’ badge on them. If Monty Don and Kew Gardens can do it, so can you!

More peat-free gardening tips

We hope this has helped you feel more confident about gardening for bees and armed you with plenty of tips to get started.