A Garden for Every Season: Planting for Bees All Year Round

As a beekeeper, I have naturally become far more interested in flowers as I love to see what honeybees are feeding on at the various times of year. I'm also a beekeeper who travels about with a stall so I get to meet people who stop by to talk bees and to look at my pollen poster. Garden offerings and seasonal differences is a topic that frequently pops up. Whenever I'm out in the garden, I always keep my phone handy so I can snap shots of foraging bees, From left to right, we've got phacelia, a courgette flower and a bee feasting on mallow musk.

There is a rich variety of floral offerings for the Spring and Summer months and if you type 'bee friendly plants' into a search engine, you'll be met with a sea of suggestions. Lavender, borage, cosmos, phacelia etc. But I'm writing this blog post because I know how vital it is to have bee friendly offerings throughout the whole year, and so this means Autumn and Winter too. On a warm Autumn day, bees will take flight from the hive and go in search of food. Although there aren't as many mouths to feed in the hive in winter, bees will still fly about looking if there's a warm day. Think about those mild days in January when a honeybee ventures out of the hive on a cleansing flight and finds nothing whatsoever in flower? Or those October afternoons when the ivy is still alive with activity but everything else has been cut back and tidied away. So I'd like to celebrate some plants that go quietly about their business outside of the main seasons, the ones that fill the gaps, bridge the hungry times, and offer something precious in the quieter months when not a lot else does. Heritage plants, native species, and old favourites that have been growing in British gardens and hedgerows for years. I've split the guide below in to the 4 seasons. For each season, you'll find a table showing 10 plants. The ticks in the columns indicate whether the plant offers pollen and nectar. In most instances, the plants I mention are valuable as a dual resource. Both pollen and nectar matter for the bees, and they are not the same thing. Pollen provides them with protein and nectar provides carbohydrate. I've tried to keep the selection to heritage and native British varieties where possible, the kinds of plants that have been here a long time and that our native pollinators have evolved alongside. To save scrolling, feel free to just click on one on the seasons here and the page will zoom down to the relevant table you want to look at. Spring Summer Autumn Winter

Planting for bees all year round: Spring

Spring is the season most people think of when it comes to bees, and rightly so. The colony is building up fast after winter, brood rearing is accelerating, and the demand for pollen is enormous. Early flowers are critically important, and even a few days of good forage in March or April can make a real difference to a colony's trajectory for the season. The plants below are some of the earliest and most reliable sources available in the British Isles.

Plant/Flower	What it looks like	Provides Pollen	Provides Nectar
Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa)		✅	✅
Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)		✅	✅
Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna)		✅	✅
Lesser Celandine (Ficaria verna)		✅	✅
Pussy Willow (Salix caprea)		✅	✅
Primrose (Primula vulgaris)		✅	✅
Apple Blossom (Malus domestica)		✅	✅
Bluebell (Hyacinthoides non scripta)		✅	✅
Lungwort (Pulmonaria officinalis)		✅	✅
Sweet Violet (Viola odorata)		✅	✅

Blackthorn and hawthorn are two of the most underappreciated bee plants in the British countryside. Both flower prolifically, both offer pollen and nectar, and both are native species with long histories in our hedgerows. If you have space for a native hedge, these two are an excellent starting point. They look stunning in flower. Pussy willow is another superb flower to plant for bees. The catkins emerge very early in the year and can be genuinely life-saving for colonies that have depleted their winter stores. Lesser celandine, often dismissed as a weed, is in fact one of the first sources of nectar available in late winter and early spring and is well worth leaving in any wild corner of the garden.

Planting for bees all year round: Summer

Summer is of course peak season. Colonies are usually at their largest by this point, foraging is at its most intense, and the countryside (at its best) is alive with clover, meadow flowers, and hedgerow blossom. One of the challenges in a modern, tidy garden is that many of these plants have been bred out of existence in favour of double flowers that look spectacular but offer nothing to a bee. Heritage varieties and straight species are almost always more valuable as they offer food.

Plant/Flower	What it looks like	Provides Pollen	Provides Nectar
Red Clover (Trifolium pratense)		✅	✅
White Clover (Trifolium repens)		✅	✅
Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea)		✅	✅
Borage (Borago officinalis)		✅	✅
Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria)		✅	✅
Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia)		✅	✅
Marjoram (Origanum vulgare)		✅	✅
Bramble / Blackberry (Rubus fruticosus)		✅	✅
Field Scabious (Knautia arvensis)		✅	✅
Cornflower (Centaurea cyanus)		✅	✅

Clover deserves a special mention. Both red and white clover are exceptional bee plants, and the decline in clover-rich meadows from the British landscape is one of the more significant losses for pollinators in recent decades. If you have any lawn at all, consider letting clover establish itself. It costs nothing and delivers enormously. Bramble is another resource that often gets overlooked because it grows so readily and is commonly seen as a nuisance. But bramble flowers are a superb source of both pollen and nectar, and a sunny bank of flowering bramble in June or July will be busy with bees from morning to evening. Where you can, do let it flower before cutting it back. Borage is worth growing in quantity. It produces nectar in abundance even in dry conditions, and honeybees will visit it repeatedly throughout the day. It self-seeds freely once established, so it is a plant that rewards an initial effort with very little ongoing work.

Planting for bees all year round: Autumn

This is where the real gaps in food resources for bees tends to appear, and of course location plays a factor as does the weather. As September arrives and gardens start to be tidied up, the sources of forage can dry up very quickly. But colonies are still active well into October now, and in a mild year even into November. Bees at this time of year are gathering the last of their winter stores, and every contribution counts.

Plant/Flower	What it looks like	Provides Pollen	Provides Nectar
Ivy (Hedera helix)		✅	✅
Michaelmas Daisy (Aster amellus)		✅	✅
Heather / Ling (Calluna vulgaris)		✅	✅
Goldenrod (Solidago virgaurea)		✅	✅
Knapweed (Centaurea nigra)		✅	✅
Sedum / Stonecrop (Hylotelephium spectabile)		✅	✅
Devil's Bit Scabious (Succisa pratensis)		✅	✅
Autumn Crocus (Colchicum autumnale)		✅	✅
Sneezewort (Achillea ptarmica)		✅	✅
Wild Marjoram (Origanum vulgare)		✅	✅

Ivy is the single most important autumn forage plant for honeybees in the UK. It flowers late, often into October and beyond, and provides a crucial late source of both pollen and nectar at exactly the time when most other plants have finished. The pollen it produces is yellow-orangey-green and the plants have a distinctive aroma. If you spot pollen of this colour being carried into a hive in October, ivy is almost certainly the source. Please, please do not cut ivy back while it is in flower.

A 1lb jar of Jem's Bees® Autumn Honey.

For those of you who know where my main apiary is in Kennett, you'll know that I have been able to offer Ivy/Autumn honey for a number of years now. The woodlands and hedgerows are full of it so when the bees gather kilos of it, I'm able to harvest some to offer to you all. Goldenrod and knapweed are also outstanding for bees. Goldenrod in particular is a magnet for pollinators of all kinds and is one of the most reliably productive late summer and early autumn plants you can grow. It is native to parts of Britain, easy to establish, and comes back year after year. Heather is worth mentioning because for beekeepers with access to moorland or heathland, the late heather flow in August and September can be one of the most productive of the entire year. Some beekeepers move their hives to the heather for this period. In the garden, cultivated heathers will provide some value, but wild ling heather is the real prize.

Planting for bees all year round: Winter

Winter is the season that surprises people most. Surely there isn't a lot for the bees in winter? Well, not during the coldest spells, no. When temperatures really drop, honeybees stay in a cluster within the hive and do not fly. But in a typical British winter, there will be mild days, sometimes whole mild weeks. During these times, the bees may come out to forage. So having something in flower nearby is not a trivial thing. Early bulbs, winter-flowering shrubs, and catkin-bearing trees and shrubs can all play a role. The plants in this table are those most likely to be of value to bees during mild winter days in the UK. So please get planting these if you're keen to help!

Plant/Flower	What it looks like	Provides Pollen	Provides Nectar
Winter Aconite (Eranthis hyemalis)		✅	✅
Snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis)		✅	✅
Hellebore (Helleborus niger)		✅	✅
Gorse (Ulex europaeus)		✅	✅
Hazel (Corylus avellana)		✅	❌
Sweet Box (Sarcococca confusa)		✅	✅
Mahonia (Mahonia aquifolium)		✅	✅
Winter Honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima)		✅	✅
Crocus (Crocus tommasinianus)		✅	✅
Cornelian Cherry (Cornus mas)		✅	✅

Winter aconite and snowdrops are among the earliest flowers of the year, often appearing in January or February, and on mild days they will be visited by honeybees and bumblebee queens alike. Both are native or long-naturalised in Britain and both are easy to establish in grass or beneath deciduous trees. Hazel is particularly interesting because it produces pollen in abundance from very early in the year, sometimes as early as January in mild conditions, but it is wind-pollinated and so produces relatively little nectar. Bees will visit it enthusiastically for the pollen alone, which is a vivid yellow and easy to spot on returning foragers. Gorse is one of the most remarkable plants for bees because it can flower during almost any mild spell throughout winter, earning the old saying that 'kissing is in season when gorse is in flower.' It provides pollen and nectar and, in mild coastal or southern counties, may flower on and off throughout the winter months. Mahonia is a shrub that deserves to be in every garden. It flowers from November through to February or March, produces nectar freely, and on mild winter days it will be visited by honeybees, bumblebees, and other early emerging insects. It is not strictly a British native but has been grown here for well over 150 years and is well-established as part of our garden heritage. Crocus, and in particular the early-flowering Crocus tommasinianus, is a wonderful addition to any lawn or border. It naturalises readily, spreads gently over time, and provides pollen and nectar very early in the season. It is a small thing, but it is there when almost nothing else is.

A Few Final Thoughts

Planting for bees all year around doesn't mean you have to have a large garden space. You can make a difference just by doing a little bit. A pot of crocus on a windowsill, a patch of ivy left to flower on a fence, a corner of the lawn left unmown so that the clover and dandelions can do their thing. These small decisions add up, especially when neighbours start making them too. I would also encourage you to think about the 'tidying impulse.' The urge to cut things back in autumn and spring is deeply ingrained in British gardening culture, but for bees and other pollinators, a slightly messier garden is often a much more generous one. Leave the seedheads, leave the ivy, let the dandelions flower before you mow. The bees will thank you for it. And if you want to learn more about what your bees are actually bringing home, and which plants those pollens come from, I have just the thing.

From the Jem's Bees Shop

My Pollen Poster, now in its second edition, is a seasonal visual guide to the pollens and associated plants commonly found in the UK. It is the sort of resource I wish I had when I first began keeping bees, and it has since found a home in garages, sheds, honey rooms, classrooms and even a fair few living rooms.

If you have ever watched bees returning to the hive with different coloured pollen loads, or noticed the pollen on their legs as they forage in your garden and wondered which plants they have been visiting, this poster will offer clues.

You can find it here: The Pollen Poster, 2nd Edition

And if you are curious about what is actually present inside the hive in the busier spring-summer months, my Happenings in the Hive Poster works just as well on a classroom wall as it does in the apiary shed. It makes a lovely gift for a new beekeeper, or for anyone who wants to see what's what, and without needing to don a bee suit. You can find it here: The Happenings in the Hive Poster Happy planting everyone, and thank you for thinking about the bees.