15 Wildflowers Beloved By Bees

8 min read

bee loving wildflowers

Whether you have a large country garden or simply a range of plants in containers on a windowsill, balcony or small patio, it can be easy to attract bees and pollinators to your flowers. Our gardens and outdoor spaces are extremely important for bees and other pollinators, providing them with the nectar and pollen they need to thrive, as well as nesting habitats. While bees aren’t particularly fussy about flowers, some flowers are better than others for our UK bees.

Bees and Butterflies are always looking for food, and they will make your garden a regular stopping place if you provide the food they like. By growing a good mix of flowering plants in your garden, you can provide a wealth of nectar and pollen for a wide range of bee species.
There are over 250 species of bees in the UK and each tends to have some particular favourite flowers that attract them. These bees can be separated into three groups:

Recognising Honeybees

Honeybees are slim in appearance and tend to look more like wasps. They have short tongues and prefer flowers that are open. They are social insects and share their hives with up to 60,000 other bees and a queen who can live for up to four years.

The main role of a honeybee is to pollinate, and they pass on information about flower locations by doing a dance. Honeybees also produce an incredible amount of honey which can be harvested and sold.

There is only one species of honeybee in the UK and many are taken care of by beekeepers. However, there are still some wild colonies. The number of honeybees in the UK is declining because of disease and mites. If you are stung by a honeybee, the bee will die, as their stinger is barbed and will become stuck in your skin. The best flowers for UK honeybees are flowers such as Sunflowers, Catmint and Spring Blossom.

Recognising Bumblebees

There are 24 different species of bumblebee in the UK, but they are easy to recognise as they are fat and furry. Each species can be distinguished by the length of its tongue, which determines the type of flower it can feed from.

Bumblebee feeding – Clover is especially beneficial to bees because the pollen is protein-rich and makes nutritious food for the larvae.

Bumblebees are social insects and live in the wild in nests with between 50 to 400 other bees. They have a queen whose main job is to maintain the number of worker bees as they only live for a few months. Unlike honeybees, they only make a small amount of honey which they use to feed themselves. The best flowers for bumblebees are flowers such as Lavender, Snapdragon and Heather.

The main job of a bumblebee is to pollenate, and they communicate with other workers by passing pollen between them to identify flower locations. Sadly, due to a lack of flowers to feed on and places to nest, bumblebee populations are reducing. Bumblebees can get aggravated and sting more than once, as, unlike the honeybee, their stingers remain intact.

Recognising Solitary Bees

Solitary bees make their own nests in underground burrows or cavity spaces. A female will lay her eggs in the nest, collect pollen and mix it with nectar to provide food for the developing larvae and then cap the cell and leave their young to fend for themselves. Solitary bees don’t produce wax and will cap their nests using different materials:

  • Red Mason Bees have red or ginger hair and the females have small horns on their heads. They use mud to cap their nests.
  • Leaf Cutter Bees have broad heads with large mandibles for cutting leaves which they place over the top of their nests.
  • Wool Carder Bees have yellow and black markings and use fine hairs from plants to make their nest caps

The main job of a solitary bee is to pollinate. Unlike honeybees, they don’t have pollen baskets and so lose more pollen whenever they visit a flower. Solitary bees are not aggressive and are safe to have around pets and children.

Nurturing The Bee Population Of The UK

Bees are in decline in the UK. Without bees, it will be impossible to support the human population and many of the world’s animals. All the plants, fruit and vegetables that we rely on need bees to propagate. To help protect our precious bee population, consider planting some of the best flowers for bees which include: Catmint, Foxgloves and Comfrey.

There is a way that you can help bees to survive. You can create a haven in your own garden using Meadowmat. Bees love our Meadowmat Wildflower Turf which includes a selection of wildflowers, including the ones below:

Agrimony has large pink flower heads, and its stem emits an attractive aroma when cut, both of which bees find irresistible. Better still, although Agrimony is classed as a wildflower, it could fit into a garden flower border if need be.

Birdsfoot Trefoil has a lovely bright yellow flower which can provide enough nectar and pollen to sustain bees over several visits. Not only does it have a great allure for bees to come to the garden, but Birdsfoot Trefoil’s production of nectar and pollen will keep your new bees coming back time and time again!

Chicory is a common favourite of bees but can produce bitter-tasting honey. It thrives in rainy weather, which causes it to produce lots of nectar, but can still make its own in even the sunniest of conditions. This makes it a fantastic pick for UK gardeners wanting to attract bees!

Clustered Bellflower is a pretty purple wildflower that has open star-shaped flowers resembling bells, making it an easy target for the bees to harvest their nectar. Better still, it has a long flowering season, so it’s a reliable choice during the spring, summer and even autumn months.

Columbine flowers have unique nectar spurs which evolve to match the tongue lengths of the pollinators that drink from them. The nectar spurs extend from the base of the petals to tempt bees and other pollinators to visit.

wildflowers that bees love

A cluster of columbine flowers.  This plant is also known as aquilegia and in its cultivated form it is a cottage garden favourite

Cornflowers grow upright, making a great landing platform for the bees and producing a delicious, sweet nectar, a bee’s ideal food source. In the summer, they produce a rich amount of nectar, and in the autumn, they produce easily-accessible seeds for bees, too.

Common daisy flowers attract bees due to their bright, white petals and a yellow centre. Daisies bloom early and continue through most of the growing season.

Maiden Pink knows when to bloom, flowering from late May until July when bees will be abundant. They produce high amounts of sweet nectar and pollen for bees to take and can last all-year round as foliage, too.

wildflowers for bees

Maiden pink: this beautiful flower is as attractive to bees as it is to people

Purple Loosestrife produces dramatic spikes of magenta flowers to feed the bees between June and August. They grow at the edges of ponds and riverbanks, so you can attract bees to your garden pond with this species of wildflowers.

Ragged Robin is a delicate, star-shaped pink flower which is an important source of nectar and pollen which makes it very alluring to long-tongued bees. It grows early in the spring and can stay around carrying nectar and pollen for bees until July.

Red Campion flowers are very popular with long-tongued bees as these flowers have a long tube with the nectar at the bottom. Short-tongued bees are unable to reach the nectar in the usual way and resort to stealing these flowers by creating a hole near the base of the flower tube and extracting the nectar. This is great for the bees but not so wonderful for the flower as it relies on bees for pollination and this process bypasses pollen collection.

Teasels are very tall flowers which bloom between July and August. They can be identified by their prickly stems and tiny rings of clustered purple flowers around a tapered seed head. They are an excellent source of nectar and pollen.

Welsh Poppies are yellow or orange in colour and bring a splash of colour to your garden and their papery petals attract bees. They have a long flowering period between March and November and produce a lot of pollen.

White Clover is very popular with bees and has a long blooming period. It produces one of the most common types of honey.

Yarrow flowers have great landing pads with their brightly coloured flat heads covered with tiny daisy flowers that bees adore.

Imagine how appealing your garden will be with so many delightful flowers. Meadowmat Wildflower Turf will provide you with a beautiful wildflower garden containing all these flowers and more and remove the need for you to buy multiple seed packets, spend time and effort cultivating your garden and essentially just hoping for the best. Opt for the tried and tested solution to provide a bee-dazzling haven for our precious little pollinators.

Planting For Pollinators – A Short Video

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