What to plant for bees

I am looking for something that provides a late summer bloom for the bees. Or anything they love. What to plant?

Just from observation and not experience, Rosemary and sunflowers always attract bees.

Might check with your county extension office to see about a pollinator program. But off the top of my head I’d say alfalfa , it typically blooms just before it’s ready to be cut and I usually get three cuttings a year .

Buckwheat, should get two or maybe three blooms a season. It will be loaded with bees.

The best recommendation will very much depend on the area and size you are planning to plant. Is it Ag land and do you have tilling equipment or is it area you will let go "wild" with pollinator plants? There are several good "crop" choices but they for the most part are only blooming a portion of the bee season. But "natural" planting can be planted with a wide variety good bee plants that will feed them all season. Need to to know more of your situation to be very helpful.

Golden rod is great for bees. Conifer trees are also a great addition. Sunflowers

Buckwheat.

This

Im no bee expert , but russian sage is hardy and blooms into late fall. Alot of bees on it ive noticed in sept oct

Thistles make awesome honey. I know crop farmers are going to hate me. But I have bought thistle honey. Thistles also attract little yellow birds. Sorry I can't keep track of wild birds. We mow our thistles right before they go to seed.

You looking for annuals or perennials?
What do you mean by late summer. To me late summer would be mid August on to frost
What would or do you have for spring and or early summer
Do you want to cut the crop whatever it is to have more flowering seasons or days?

Alfalfa flowers in early June around here and will be brown by the 4th of July.
I agree talk with some experienced bee keepers.

Below is a link that offers ideas for full season options for bees

http://www.countryfarm-lifestyles.com/honey-plants.html#.XGtnCehKiM8
Bryce

Plant you some buckwheat. We can get three blooms here.

Check Pheasants forever. Planted 2 acres, mix of flowers, clover, etc. Doing great until freeze up.

I see bee boxes on the prairie but always near a creek or river area. Thinking about what kind of crop would be close there isn't any. Grass and cedar trees and what ever wild flowering plants would be it. So what would they live on in this kind of country?

Buckwheat, if you want to plant annual. Goldenrod as perrenial. Buckwheat blossoms produce an extremely dark honey. Goldenrod honey is also a darker honey. Japanese knotweed, an invasive, also provides a great late August- early September flow.

In my area of Pa., under ideal conditions, bees can produce more honey in September than the rest of the season combined.

I just planted some Indian Blanket for a bee-keeper. It blooms until frost, and is a native prairie species. Also planted a lot of different Asters, very hardy, but bloom late in the year generally. Both good for bees is what I was told.

Aster is about the last thing that bees work here in Pa. I always take my honey off before it emerges, as aster based honey will crystallize quickly in a cell....sugared up honey in supers is a bummer. I let the bees gather it and store it in the bottom hive bodies.

Any of the many Sedums are also late bloomers, low maintenance and very bee attractive.

I know NOTHING about bees except they make honey. This guy has about 60 acres of flowers and an orchard, with his hives in the middle. Had me plant the species I mentioned close to the hives. Said that his bees needed more late blooming flowers. That's all I know.

I will say he only had me plant 1/2 acre with the Indian Blanket and Asters.

Dolichos lablab, hyacinth bean, really attracts bees and hummingbirds and will bloom heavily from late Spring unill the first hard frost. It is a vigorous climber, but will grow on the ground too, if there is nothing to climb. I measured a tendril that grew 22 inches in one day. Hyacinth bean smells fantastic and gets a multitude of flower stalks up to at least 18 inches long.

Keith

Trees. A single large mature blooming tree (tulip poplar, red maple, black locust, sourwood, basswood) if laid out flat covers a half acre or more and you can fit several dozen trees per acre. Plus they'll feed bees for the better part of a century without the need to replant.

Truth is there is no way to plants forbs in large enough quantity to matter to bees unless you're talking acres.

As Warrior states, certain trees (always overlooked) feed bees far more than most flowering crops. Search "Mike connor bees and trees" on youtube if interested.

As far as plants, the Goldenrod is the last blooming (easy to seed) plant we have up here in the north that produces a honey flow.

BUT, if you just want to feed some local bees, I'd suggest just putting out a sugar water feeder or two in the fall. Kind of like a bird feeder but you might be surprised at the amount of bees that will come to just some sugar water. And it's a lot more bang for the buck in the bee world. It's what most of us bee keepers feed our bees come fall....especially up here in the north.

Any white clover.

Some of the things that bees like will make very dark honey, and will change the taste of it also. Some of the plants can be very invasive too.

X2 on the trees.

What are you wanting the bees to do? Are you wanting to attract them to a garden or are you making honey?

Interesting and informative. Thanks Warrior. My wife and I planted a tulip poplar and a small patch of native wild flowers in our yard. Mostly my wife likes the hummingbirds and butterflies of course, but I noticed a lot of bees started visiting our yard after we had our patch up and blooming. In fact, we've had swarms twice since we started including this in our landscaping. Not sure if the swarms were related, but I found it interesting to see such masses of bees.

Lot of bee-keepers in my area have their bee boxes located in locust groves. They also set out tubs of sugar water in the late fall near the bees, and the bees very actively use them. Getting a little clearer picture now of the what and why's. Cool stuff.

Way too open ended a question to even attemp an answer. Need more specifics. Acres to be planted, number of colonies, type of honey desired, whether pollination is the goal, yield of honey expected, management style of bee keeping. The list goes on and on. As a beekeeper, I will not even attempt to answer your question as it is far too open ended, sorry...

Chicory and clovers would be good.

Trees are definitely major bee feeders but they take serious time to mature to flowering age sadly. The poster has yet to add more details on his situation.

Shhhh! Don't give away our secret.

privet, sweet clover, tallow, brazilian pepper, knotweed, star thistle

All major honey producers and all non native invasives

As are honey bees

Knotweed is a great late season honey producer, But up here it is very invasive.

When I raised bees my favorite honey came from alfalfa from local farmers. IMO, clover or alfalfa are great bee crops and they're perennials.

Alfalfa use to be huge producer in the lower part of this state and I enjoy the flavor. Unfortunately its really hit and miss production wise anymore. Milk production happens on a huge scale here now as is the case in many states and that impacts how alfalfa is farmed. Modern practices means the alfalfa never gets even close to flowering before its cut. Even as recently as 15 years ago, it was common to have small alfalfa fields scattered around and sometimes those would flower before they were cut especially if the weather wasnt good and any baling was involved. But now alfalfa is cut as soon as it gets a foot tall or so and its a non stop thing; they can chop entire sections straight into silage trailers in a day when same amount of ground would have taken them a week in years past. The days of 3 cuttings a year are long over. About the only time we hit alfalfa crop is on the fields that have been played out come fall but they haven't been hit with herbicide and replanted just yet. In those cases, its common for good parts of an entire section to all bloom at once. If you are there then things can be great.

As stated above we too have alfalfa managed similarly. The crop is cut in the bud stage and then typically every 30-35 days depending upon maturity. The crop is typically 24-28 inches tall at those stages of maturity and most get 4 and several 5 cuttings per year. Most is taken out of production after the 3rd full year or earlier as corn silage is now the major forage for most medium and large dairies. Higher yields, one cutting with fewer issues like disease, insects and winter injury.
We still have a some who let one cutting, usually 3rd cutting that they allow to flower. The quality stays up and this gives the crop better wintering capacity.


Bryce

If one is looking for late summer blooms, I don’t think there are any late summer nectar or pollen producing trees here in my area. Willow, aspen, maple, basswood, locust, catalpa and tulip poplar ( good bee trees in Pa ) are wrapped up by early summer.

Around here it's red clover.

Sourwood and sumac are the last major tree crop here in Georgia coming in late June into July. I see many of the agritourism farms planting zinnias for the kids to pick and the butterflies and bees are all over them. Sunflowers are another good late summer crop that can double up for dove hunting or wildlife planting. Lespadeza the same.

Sourwood is hit or miss though. While it's grows statewide it's only good for a honey crop in the north ga mountains and then it can be very site specific. Some years you take bees to the mountains and get nothing and others you load up. All depends if the right coves get exactly the right weather. The mountains are funny that way, there are places where one side of a mountain might get ten more inches of rain than the other side.