Bee-Friendly Planting: Feed Your Bees, Fight Varroa
A well-fed colony shrugs off pressure a starving one can't. Here's how your garden becomes varroa defence.
Varroa doesn't just bite bees, it spreads viruses, and a colony's ability to ride that out comes down to nutrition. Bees with steady pollen (protein) and nectar (energy) across the whole season raise stronger brood, keep more nurse bees, and recover from a knock far better than a colony limping through a nectar dearth. You can't spray your way out of poor forage — but you can plant your way to healthier bees. This is where a garden app earns its keep.
The four rules of a bee garden
- Something in flower every month. The dangerous gaps are late summer and late winter. Plan for those, not just the easy spring flush.
- Plant in drifts, not dots. A clump of ten of one flower is worth more to a foraging bee than ten different singles.
- Single, open flowers beat frilly doubles. Many showy hybrids have bred the nectar and accessible pollen right out. Go for open faces bees can actually reach.
- Never spray insecticide on anything in flower. This includes “bee-safe” labels — spray at dusk when bees are home, and not on blooms. See our safe sprays guide.
What to plant, season by season (Australia)
Mix and match for your climate — check anything against the plant library and your region's calendar.
Spring – the easy season, build the population: borage, phacelia, calendula, alyssum, cornflower, salvias, fruit-tree blossom, clover in the lawn, coriander and brassicas left to bolt.
Summer – keep energy up: sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos, basil and other herbs in flower, lavender, echium, pumpkin and cucurbit flowers, gaura.
Autumn – the pre-winter top-up: sedum, salvia (still going), late basil, marigold, aster, buckwheat as a quick cover crop.
Winter – the hungry gap that matters most: grevillea and banksia (superb natives for winter nectar), rosemary, wattle (pollen), hellebore, jonquil, early stone-fruit and almond blossom, winter-flowering eucalypts.
Don't forget natives and water
Eucalypts, grevilleas, banksias, callistemon, tea-tree and westringia are nectar powerhouses and often flower when little else does — they also feed our native bees. And bees need to drink: a shallow dish with pebbles or a dripping tap gives them a safe landing spot so they aren't drowning in the pool or bothering the neighbours.
Planting Season shows what's flowering and what to sow now for your exact region, so there's always something on for the bees.
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