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How to Attract Bees?

 
Anne Miller
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How do we attract bees other than planting pretty flowers?

It seems this is the year without bees as we have only seen two near our wildlife water pan.

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Sprinkle a little lemongrass oil around. I've heard peppermint oil also works but have never tried it.

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They love mountain mint plants! It's crazy! All the bumble bees, native bees, and honey bees, actually weigh the plants down so that they're bending over from all the weight of all the appreciative insects on them. And they're so easy to grow as well. Nothing fussy about them. You'd just need to see if you are in the right area for them, of course.
 
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Leaving a patch of bare soil somewhere sunny helps a lot for ground-nesting bees, which is most native species actually. They don't want mulch or grass over their nesting spots. A shallow dish with pebbles and water gives them somewhere to drink without drowning too. Beyond flowers, those two things made the biggest difference for me.

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Anne Miller
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Joao Winckler wrote:A shallow dish with pebbles and water gives them somewhere to drink without drowning too.



This is what I am thinking is the best approach since the like our wildlife water.

What about some sugar water?

We are going to town on Monday and I am hoping there are some transplants that I can buy that have yellow flowers, maybe cosmos though I have never seen those for sale here.

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A class I took said blue flowers are their favorite.

A safe supply of water is good too. Sugar might be good too. That somewhat depends on if there is enough natural forage for them. In your area at this time of year I suspect sugar might be very welcomed by them.

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Missy Feathers
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Hollies and blueberry bushes are what I have  most of that attracts my honey bees.
 
Tereza Okava
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for me, the key is to let all my herbs flower. cilantro, basil, mint, anything i would normally be cutting off the flowers to get more mileage out of the plant, let it bloom. They're always covered in bees.
 
Yekta Sevim
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On the sugar water: I'd leave it out. An open bowl of syrup gets robbed hard, pulls in wasps, and can carry disease from one colony to the next; beekeepers who need to feed do it inside the hive. Clean water near the flowers, like your wildlife pan, is the better draw.

Seeing almost no bees can also just be the season. In a lot of places mid and late summer is a dearth, a stretch with little in bloom, and the bees are fewer and quieter then. Whatever flowers in your emptiest month is worth more to them than one more spring bloomer, and letting herbs bolt, as Tereza says, is one of the easiest ways to fill that gap.

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