Honey bees depend entirely on floral resources for survival. Nectar provides carbohydrates for energy (flight and heat), while pollen supplies the proteins, fats, and minerals necessary for growth and brood rearing. A colony’s health requires a diverse and continuous supply of both resources throughout the active foraging season. Planting sequential flora ensures an uninterrupted food supply, preventing nutritional gaps. This seasonal guide selects plants supporting the colony from spring emergence to winter preparation.
Early Spring: Fueling the Colony
Early blooming plants provide the first fresh forage after winter, stimulating the queen to lay eggs and initiating colony buildup. This protein and energy boost is necessary for rapid population expansion, as colonies often emerge from dormancy with depleted food stores. Pollen is critical, consumed by nurse bees to produce royal jelly and brood food essential for larval development.
The earliest sources include woody plants that bloom when temperatures are low, and small flowers that push through cold soil. Key plants include:
- Pussy willow: Provides both nectar and rich pollen, often appearing in late winter or early spring.
- Maples (red, silver, and sugar varieties): Offer abundant nectar and pollen before their leaves fully emerge.
- Crocus and snowdrops: Among the first bulbs to bloom, offering a rich source of pollen when few other flowers are available.
- Dandelions: An exceptionally valuable early-season source of both nectar and pollen.
Mid-Season: Major Nectar and Pollen Providers
Mid-season, spanning late spring through mid-summer, is the “main honey flow” when colonies collect the bulk of their food stores for the entire year. The focus shifts to high-yield plants that produce large quantities of nectar, which the bees convert into surplus honey. Diversity in planting during this time ensures a balanced diet, as the nutritional content of pollen varies significantly between plant species.
Field Crops and Cover Crops
Field crops and cover crops are major sources of nectar flow due to the sheer volume of blooms they produce. Clovers, including white and crimson clover, are recognized globally as a gold standard for honey production, yielding abundant nectar continuously throughout the summer if the plants are maintained. Alfalfa and canola, when allowed to flower, also provide substantial forage value.
Garden Flowers and Herbs
Borage is a prolific annual known for its high nectar yield, attracting bees consistently throughout its bloom period. Sunflowers, particularly open-pollinated varieties, provide a significant amount of both pollen and nectar during the summer months. Culinary herbs like lavender and thyme offer concentrated nectar, with lavender blooming in mid-summer to provide a valuable resource when some earlier blooms are fading.
Woody Plants
Woody plants continue to contribute significantly to the mid-season flow, often providing the most substantial single-source flows. Basswood (American linden) is known for its intense, high-volume nectar production over a short period, capable of yielding substantial honey. Fruit trees such as apple, cherry, and plum, which bloom in late spring, also provide excellent, concentrated sources of nectar and pollen that contribute to the main flow.
Late Summer and Fall: Preparing for Winter
Forage availability in late summer and fall is essential for the colony’s winter survival, directly impacting the health of the “winter bees.” These winter-generation bees must survive until spring; their longevity is determined by body fat reserves built from late-season pollen. This forage also provides the final carbohydrate stores needed to fuel the winter cluster, as bees cannot forage once temperatures drop below 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
Goldenrod represents one of the most important late-season food sources across North America, blooming from late summer until the first hard frost. It provides a reliable source of both nectar and pollen when most other flowers have finished. The honey produced from goldenrod is typically darker and stronger-flavored but serves as an excellent internal food reserve for the hive.
Asters, blooming concurrently with goldenrod, are another resource, offering additional nectar and pollen to supplement the late flow. Sedum varieties, specifically the fall-blooming types like ‘Autumn Joy,’ are also concentrated sources of late-season sustenance useful in small garden spaces. Planting these species ensures the colony has access to the necessary protein and carbohydrates required to raise the long-lived bees needed for winter survival.
Optimizing the Bee Garden Environment
The effectiveness of any planted forage is heavily dependent on the surrounding environment and garden management practices. To maximize foraging efficiency, plants should be grouped together in large patches, or “drifts,” rather than scattered. Honey bees are efficient foragers who prefer to collect a single type of resource in one trip, and large groupings of the same flower make this process easier.
An absolute necessity for a healthy bee environment is the complete avoidance of systemic pesticides, which can contaminate the nectar and pollen within the plant tissues. Even non-systemic chemicals should be avoided, especially on flowering plants, to prevent direct harm to foraging bees. Instead, organic gardening methods should be embraced to manage pests.
Bees require a clean, reliable water source for hydration and to regulate the temperature and humidity within the hive. A shallow dish or container filled with water and lined with pebbles or floating corks provides a safe landing spot for bees to drink without drowning. Finally, planting in areas that receive adequate sun exposure is beneficial, as flowers in full sun often produce more nectar, and bees prefer to forage in warmer, sunlit conditions.