Bee-friendly Backyard

Honeybees collect pollen and nectar from flowers and blossoms. Not all flowers are equally liked by bees - bees prefer blue, purple and yellow blossoms.
You can attract bees to your backyard and improve their quality of life by planting a variety of plants bees just love to visit. Honeybees usually forage within a radius of three kilometres, so if you don't have any bees yourself, someone within a radius of 3 km might have a hive or two, and then there are the feral bee colonies - all searching for flowers.

Perhaps not so well known is the fact that bees (as well as other insects) require a source of fresh water, especially on warm days!

Providing a constant water supply will make your backyard more attractive to bees as well. Please take measures to stop the bees from drowning by adding some floating material or some pebbles reaching above the surface.

Bee-attracting plants for your backyardThe information on this page should help you establishing a backyard with bee-attracting plants.

Planting a variety of bee-attracting plants will draw the largest crowd.

We are aware that in most cases space is limited and we cannot plant dozens of tall trees and bushes, that's why our focus on this page is on small plants.

Those who are fortunate enough to establish large gardens or parks with trees and bushes may get some ideas by visiting our page . Australian Nectar Sources .

Herbs: A number of herbs and vegetables attract bees with their flowers appart from being useful in your kitchen. Every bee-attracting backyard should have a herbs and vegie patch.