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Planting bee forage is an important consideration to feed your bees or attract bees to your garden. Please share any resources or first hand information about what plants to grow in order to effectively feed bees. Techniques and placement recommendations also welcome!

OSBH Seed Bomb Tutorial

I am kind of lucky, in that I do landscape planning as a job. For Australia, this is the resource that I use when I want to add plants that will maximize nectar and pollen resources:
https://rirdc.infoservices.com.au/items/12-014

It is designed for Australian conditions, but covers lots of exotics. Just remember that the seasons are reversed down here

I've heard that a minimum of 5 different flowering species at any given time is needed for adequate nutrition for the bees. Most areas have near this number due to native species, though not all. Maybe one of the best things we can do for our bees is plant very early flowing plants, and late blooming plants, to extend the foraging season.

It makes sense to me to include a 'medicinal plants' section in your garden for Bees to forage. With all the bugs & beasties harrassing Bees and their Hives, one has to wonder if a bit of natural medicine readily available would assist in building a robust Hive?

By medicinal plants, I mean plants that human's also use for medicinal purposes in a herb garden setup.

I'm also very interested in the role that Mycelium plays in the health of Bees. For a fascinating peek into the world of Mycelium check out Paul Stamets doco https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAw_Zzge49c

Thanks for this @K8Bee.

What specific plants would you include?

We can get a list together and do some experimenting next Spring!

That sounds great! I will post a list of plants in the next couple of days!

We have Lavender, Lemon Balm (Romans called it 'Bee Balm') and Callistemon is a favourite early in spring. We also have this: https://rirdc.infoservices.com.au/items/12-014 from our Rural Industries Research and Development Department.

I also want to get Winter Savoury (Satureja montan) for the apiary as it provides relief from bee stings when rubbed onto the skin.

Hey Jagungal
Are you based in Adelaide, Australia?
If so, thanks for your list of plants. I've seen the book you sent the link to as well.
My Hive (now has become 2 Hives) was relocated 5 months ago onto an a-mazing property full of herbs and array of plant forms in the Yarra Valley, Victoria. We are at the end of Spring, beginning of Summer here. My Hive Host is an avid and knowledgeable gardener and observes the Bees on a daily basis, watching what and where they love to go. This is just the beginnings of really watching the Bees and what they choose and when and documenting it. So far Rosemary was a huge fav - the girls were all over it while it flowered. They appear to like White Sage flowers too (recently started flowering). White Lavender seems to be more popular than the Purple flower. Depending on the temperature will depend if the Girls visit the Lavender. Out of interest, another non-medicinal plant they were all over was the Wisteria when it flowered recently. As information comes to hand I will post.

We are based in Canberra - I have one hive in the backyard (plus often a bunch of rescued swarms in nuc's on the roof of the chook shed) and at the office in the city we have a Langstroth and a Warre on a balcony.

There are some nice photos of the office set-up here: https://photosbykris.exposure.co/aurecons-urban-bee-colony