FIMBY: Where are the bees when you need them?

This is the latest installment of our Food in My Back Yard series on edible gardening.

Tomatoes are wind-pollinated; oranges are self-pollinating.

But many other types of edible plants need bees or other flying pollinators to produce a crop. Where do they come from, and how to get them to stick around?

California has about1,600 types of native bees, most of which do not live in hives or colonies. Honey bees, which are not native to North America, are the bees that commercial beekeepers raise and rent out to pollinate orchards and other agricultural interests.

However, as beekeepers were preparing for the 2025 almond pollination season, reports were coming in about “sudden and severe honey bee colony losses.” According to Project Apis m.,  “This additional loss puts many beekeepers at a loss rate of 70%-100%,” reviving memories of the Colony Collapse Disorder crisis in the early 2000s.

Bees can fly up to 5 miles in search of food, but this may mean there are fewer honey bees around to visit home gardens.

But the backyard gardeners who were hoping for a nice crop of melons or blackberries this summer can still get help from bees — if they help the bees first.

Those 1,600 native species are around, after all. Native insects prefer native plants — so it makes sense to populate a garden with flowering California natives such as Salvia clevelandii (Cleveland sage), with its aromatic purple-blue flowers, and Matilija poppy, its crinkled white flowers with gold stamens resembling fried eggs. Tidy tips, California poppies, seaside daisies and ceanothus are just a few of the other natives that bees find irresistible.

Smaller bees tend to like smaller or flat flowers. All bees seem to like white or purple flowers — watch a nursery table to see where the bees show up. I once bought a dark purple salvia hybrid simply because it had been buzzing with bees at a nursery, and that plant still is a garden favorite. 

With native and other floral treats like these around, bees will find the home garden. Once they are aware of the banquet available, their friends will show up, too.

That’s all great for landscape planning, the gardener might say, but how to entice bees NOW? It’s already late spring.

Plant sunflowers — as many as will fit in the garden (they grow fast and do get large), and for heaven’s sake don’t plant the “pollen-free” hybrids. I like “Lemon Queen” and “Autumn Beauty” varieties for color and bee-attraction. Sunflowers also attract birds (another pollinator, they like to eat the green leaves). Big colorful zinnias such as the State Fair variety are another option; they bring in the butterflies as well as bees.

Here are some other tips for helping and enticing bees and other pollinators:

— Water sources are important for bees. A shallow dish or an extra plant saucer makes a great water source for bees and other insects: Fill it at least halfway with clean rocks or marbles or even wine corks. The bees need a place to rest while they drink, and you don’t want them to drown.

— Don’t deadhead every plant in your garden. Let some of them flower for the pollinators to enjoy. Herb flowers such as chamomile, lavender, rosemary, parsley and cilantro are pollinator favorites. African blue basil and cultivars ‘Wild Magic’ and ‘Magic Mountain’ basils are grown for their flowers as bee attractants.

— Look for plants that flower in fall and winter, too. Pineapple sage, with its spiky red flowers, and ‘Howard McMinn’ manzanita, with white ones, are examples for these two seasons respectively.

— Remember that pollinators such as bees avoid extreme heat. During a heat spike, such as the one predicted this weekend, vine crops such as squash or melons will not be getting pollinated. Take on a pollinator role yourself: Grab a watercolor brush or even a cotton swab and move pollen from the male flower (skinny stalk) to the female flower (tiny squash visible under the flower).

— This should go without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway: Do not use pesticides and herbicides in the garden if at all possible — not while you’re also trying to bring in pollinators. Systemic herbicides, which don’t involve spraying, are just as bad as the others: The herbicide gets into the plant’s system (not to mention the soil) and of course into its flowers and pollen. There are many ways to handle plant problems without these  chemicals.

The Sacramento County master gardeners has a publication online that suggests how to attract bees and other pollinators. Go here and look for Garden Note (GN) 156.

For a deep dive into flowering plants and the bees that love them, I recommend “California Bees & Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists,” published by Heyday in collaboration with the California Native Plant Society. It’s out of print, but can be found at the Sacramento Public Library and for purchase on used-book sites.