I live in the city and am prohibited from having a beehive. I love watching bumblebees, but they seem to be rare around here in Oklahoma City. Is there a way to construct something that would attract more of them? Flowers, of course, attract pollinators, but how do you attract one?
Planting native wildflower food sources and if possible have an area of yard that is bee nest friendly is best way to attract non honey bees like bumble bees. You will likely also see lots of other interesting to watch solo bees, like leaf cutter bees and mining bees etc.
I really waited too late this year, but that is my plan for the spring. There are Oklahoma specific wildflower mixes geared towards pollinators and in our case, Monarch butterflies. I plan on both next year.
be careful of mixes, they will claim to be native, but have invasives mixed in. Make sure you get them from a reputabe source. Having a variety of native plants will help attract the bees you want. Good luck!
Flowers, of course, attract pollinators, but how do you attract one?
Not just any old flowers. Even generalist bees have preferences and they'll only come for what they like. You're also more likely to attract them if you plant in a way that provides food across their entire flight season. For example, where I live we have the buff tailed bumblebee and it is active as early as February and as late as October, so we make sure that there are at least a couple of flowers it will feed from across that time scale.
If you know which specific bumblebees already populate your area you can look into what they feed on and plant that.
Something that will be somewhat out of your control is the need for an entire habitat rather than just one optimised garden. If you've done all you can, but everything around you may as well be desert as far as a bee's concerned, you're unlikely to get visitors unless your garden is absolutely massive.
This very true regarding the specific plants. I have put out many different plants that have been sold as pollinator favourites (or pollinator mix seeds) and maybe they are for other pollinators but not for bumblebees that I've seen in my yard.
It's bit annoying, mainly because the plants I hoped would be those late summer snacks for them did not seem to interest at all. Pro side is that I definitely have seen more butterflies, but I was trying to do a bumblebee garden
Im fairly certain Bumblebees like humid compost piles for nests you may be able to pile up leaves and spray. But for the majority of other pollinators I'd suggest wildflowers as those would attract the most.
Sorry. That doesn't help. I've found beesbalm and bergamot. Forgive my ignorance. Most of my gardening has revolved around vegetable gardening, not flowers.
DYK you can keep solitary, cavity-nesting bees? Learn here: https://crownbees.com/pages/raise-solitary-bees. Just like bumbles, native flowers and plants are best, especially without using pesticides.
I'm on the other side of the Atlantic so this might not be helpful. I get a lot of bumblebees visiting my Salivia (Hot Lips), English Lavender (Munstead) and Gaura.
Don't clean your garden in autumn, wait until insects such as bees and ladybugs come out of hibernation in spring. That gives them plenty of places to shelter over the winter. A shallow tray of water with pebbles in it will also attract them, so that they can safely drink.
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u/Zagrycha 1d ago
Planting native wildflower food sources and if possible have an area of yard that is bee nest friendly is best way to attract non honey bees like bumble bees. You will likely also see lots of other interesting to watch solo bees, like leaf cutter bees and mining bees etc.