Plants for Bees: A Guide to the Plants that Benefit the Bees of the British Isles
Why buy this book?
Not everyone wants to keep honeybees but lots of people want to plant a bee-friendly garden. This beautiful book provides a huge amount of well-researched but easily accessible information to help you do that. Plants for Bees: A Guide to the Plants that Benefit the Bees of the British Isles is good because there are:
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Separate chapters on the needs of honeybees, bumblebees and solitary bees - each listing their top 10 plants
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Over 200 pages of plant information about wild and garden plants, shrubs and trees
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An "at a glance" key for each plant - showing which plant is best suited to which bees
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A quick reference guide listing plants and rating their bee appeal
Many other books give information about what might be considered bee-friendly "traditional" garden plants. Plants for Bees covers these kinds of plants but, unusually, it also lists beneficial trees and shrubs - both wild and cultivated.
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Gardens are quickly becoming an alternative food source for many bee species. Whilst not everyone has space to plant trees, the book gives an insight into the importance of having lots of different flower sources available to bees.
Plants for Bees can be a go-to reference for gardeners who aim to provide forage for the hundreds of different species of bees in the UK. I check it often for inspiration when I am buying plants for the garden - because it is so comprehensive it makes it easy to choose something that will look good and which the bees will like too.
We refer to this book on our bee keeping courses because bee forage is an important thing for beekeepers to think about. We also use it on our All About Bees workshop because it covers plants for honeybees, bumblebees and the often forgotten solitary bees.
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We can all help bees (and other pollinators) by choosing the right plants for gardens and conserving plants in hedgerows, farms and wild places. Plants for Bees makes that much easier to achieve.
