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A bee-friendly garden and balcony: what to plant for flowers from spring to autumn
Bees and other pollinators don’t need a single week of flowers – they need food without a break from early spring to late autumn. A garden, or even a balcony, can help a lot if the plants flower one after another. Autumn is the best moment to start: this is when the early spring bulbs go in. Why it matters, you can read in our piece on pollinators.
Early spring: bulbs planted in autumn
Some wild bees are already flying in February, when hardly anything is in flower. At that time snowdrops, crocuses, squills (Scilla) and winter aconites feed them. Plant the bulbs between late September and mid-November, at least two to three weeks before the ground freezes.
Important: in Hungary, wild snowdrops, the native crocuses, squills and winter aconite are protected, and digging them up from the wild is forbidden. Buy cultivated bulbs from a garden centre.
Spring: trees and shrubs
In spring, fruit trees and native shrubs – early-flowering hazel, later hawthorn – matter most. The Hungarian Ornithological and Nature Conservation Society (MME) also recommends native woody plants, because they feed the most insects. Out in the fields, rapeseed and acacia (black locust) flower at this time; they give us rapeseed honey and acacia honey.
Summer: a herb garden on the balcony
In summer, even a sunny balcony can be a real bee pasture. Lavender, thyme, marjoram, oregano, chives and borage all do well in pots. Let a few stems of your herbs flower – that’s exactly what the bees are looking for.
If you have space, sow phacelia: it is one of the most important bee plants in Hungary and flowers from June to September. Summer flowers also give us wildflower honey.
Autumn: when flowers get scarce
In autumn there is less and less food, so every late flower counts. Ivy flowers now, from August to October and sometimes longer; so does drought-tolerant stonecrop (sedum), which copes well on a balcony; and the native Italian aster (Aster amellus) – protected in the wild in Hungary, but available from garden centres. What happens inside the hive at this time is explained in our piece on the beekeeping year.
Better not to plant these
Some often-recommended “bee-friendly” plants are invasive in Hungary: they escape from gardens and push out native species.
- North American asters (Michaelmas daisies), such as the New York aster and the New England aster – choose the native Italian aster instead.
- Canadian goldenrod and giant goldenrod.
- Virginia creeper.
- Himalayan balsam and tree of heaven: both are on the EU list of invasive species, so keeping and planting them is prohibited.
Single flowers, water and an untidy corner
A few small things that make a garden truly bee-friendly:
- Choose single, open-flowered varieties – of marigolds, dahlias and zinnias too. In double flowers the stamens have turned into petals, so there is no pollen in them, and often no nectar either.
- Put out a shallow dish of water with a few stones in it, so bees can land safely and drink.
- Leave a patch of bare, sunny soil and a wilder, unmown corner. Around 700 species of wild bee live in Hungary, and most bee species – an estimated two-thirds to four-fifths – nest in the ground.
- Never spray plants in flower. In Hungary, pesticides that are dangerous to bees may only be applied from one hour before sunset until 11 pm.
What about a bee hotel?
Bee hotels are mostly taken over by mason bees, which fly in spring, and leafcutter bees – but also by wasps and parasites. In a Canadian study, roughly three-quarters of the hotels were occupied by wasps. A bee hotel is a nice extra, but flowers and bare soil are worth more, since most wild bees nest in the ground. If you still want to put one up:
- Holes should be 2–10 mm across.
- Place it somewhere sunny, south-facing and dry, at least one metre off the ground.
- Several small ones are better than one big one.
- Replace drilled wooden blocks every two years, because parasites build up in them.
Our honeys mentioned here
Rapeseed honey
Acacia honey
Wildflower honeyTerms from the glossary
Sources
- Annexes to Decree 13/2001 of the Ministry for Environment – protected plants (in Hungarian)
- Természetvédelem.hu – the EU list of invasive species (in Hungarian)
- Fertő-Hanság National Park – invasive plant species in Hungary (in Hungarian)
- Enfo – the spread of North American asters (in Hungarian)
- MME – plants for a bird-friendly garden (in Hungarian)
- Dunai and Pinke, Botanikai Közlemények (2023) – phacelia (in Hungarian)
- RHS – plants for pollinators
- RHS – pollinator-friendly pots and containers
- Greenpeace Hungary – 10 bee-friendly plants (in Hungarian)
- Magyar Mezőgazdaság – on wild bees (in Hungarian)
- Agroforum – planting spring bulbs (in Hungarian)
- Buglife – bee hotel guide
- MacIvor and Packer, PLoS ONE (2015) – who lives in bee hotels
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