New member 'belleshere' posted this on the beekeeping forum.

belleshere said:I'm having a hard time locating bees in my neighborhood. i have a lemon tree that i don't think was pollinated plus some vegetables.
i want to plant some different flowers that will attract bees. can you help?

Thanks, Beverley D.

No link to the thread or post so no idea how to answer belleshere but you can direct them to the Gardening for Butterflies, Birds and Bees forum:
http://garden.org/forums/view/...

Broccoli flowers attract a lot of bees! Of course you have to let some of your delicious edible florets develop into flowers instead of harvesting and eating. But they are total bee magnets.

If you have a lemon tree, you are probably in FL or CA? Now is a great time to plant broccoli, and plant enough that you can let a plant or two go to flower, and still have enough to harvest and eat. I plant out transplants at this time of year and also plant seeds of other varieties for an ongoing harvest. My Earth Box holds 4 plants, and I let one go to flower while eating from the other three.


@greene I posted this on the Beekeeping thread as well.

Try the Gardening for Honeybees articles in Ideas
http://garden.org/ideas/search...

@belleshere The best thing you can do for bees if they are scarce in your area is not to use chemical insecticides. Bees are very sensitive to chemicals and will avoid areas that are sprayed, or they die off from exposure.

If you have the space, plant a celtis. they attract other pollinators, and get huge.

The honey bees love the white clover where I live.

My citrus trees attract bees almost better than any of the plants mentioned above - except, maybe, the broccoli. If the lemon tree is not visited by bees, perhaps there just are none.

We are still waiting for @belleshere to give us a general location/climate/zone. That would help us to give better answers.

Tom, what is "celtis" ??

Hackberry: http://garden.org/plants/brows...

Weedwhacker said:Tom, what is "celtis" ??

Celtis occidentalis, hackberry.

Well, not only had I never heard of "Celtis," I've also never heard of "Hackberry" that I can recall... so I figured it must be some southern thing, but NO! It seems to be native to N. Dakota... and one of the 100 most common trees in N. America. (and I thought I was pretty well tree-informed!)

I did find this information about it (and now that I've learned all of this new stuff, I can take the rest of the day off! )

http://forestry.about.com/od/t...

Hackberry is a weak tree whose forked limbs are subject to split and which makes the tree vulnerable to major wind and ice damage. Hackberry bark is very thin, the tree damages easily and is susceptible to disease, eventual rot and catastrophic limb loss.
Roots can raise sidewalks and interfere with mowing. The tree is messy with an abundant loss of small limbs and fruit each year. The best use of hackberry is along woods lines and well away from pavement and utilities.

Redeeming features:
*Hackberry will survive on poor soils.
*Hackberry provides abundant wildlife food.
*Hackberry hosts many butterfly species.
*Hackberry is one of only a few tree species that thrive on the Great Plains.