Planting Bee Friendly Trees – Adding Beautiful Trees That Help Bees

Blooming Tree In Garden
bee tree
(Image credit: Gwenvidig)

You may already have borage or milkweed in your backyard. What about trees that help bees though? Trees for bees can help these beloved pollinators in different ways than flowers can. If you aren’t sure which are bee-friendly trees, read on. We’ll outline pollinator trees and shrubs that will help keep bees alive.

About Pollinator Trees

Bees are the most important pollinator of flowers and crops. The recent decline in the bee population has everyone worried, including farmers and gardeners. Planting bee-friendly trees and shrubs is one way to help these essential species by providing a long-term balanced habitat.

Certain trees and shrubs are the backbone plants for a bee-friendly ecosystem. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t plant smaller pollinator plants since habitats should be multi-tiered. Shrubs and trees for bees can provide nesting opportunities for both bees and butterflies.

Dead trees are the preferred nesting spot for many kinds of bees. Even the hollow stems of shrubs can provide nesting spots for some small bees like the tiny harebell carpenter bee.

Trees That Help Bees

That doesn’t mean that bee friendly trees don’t offer forage. A small tree or large shrub that is lush with pollen rich flowers is ideal for bee forage, since bees don’t need to spend energy flying from one plant to another.

Which are particularly good trees for bees?

Bee-Friendly Trees for Windbreaks

Pollinator trees can also be those that help bees and butterflies avoid strong wind currents. Foraging bees and other pollinators get easily blown away. As an example, honeybees can’t withstand winds over 25 mph.

Your best bet when planting pollinator trees is to select a mix of deciduous and conifer trees and shrubs. Conifers are not pollinated by insects, but they do provide excellent wind protection for bees.

Other excellent choices of trees and shrubs for bees are those that flower and provide windbreak protection. These include honeysuckle shrubs as well as redbud, dogwood, willow, and serviceberry

Teo Spengler
Writer

Teo Spengler is a master gardener and a docent at the San Francisco Botanical Garden, where she hosts public tours. She has studied horticulture and written about nature, trees, plants, and gardening for more than two decades. Her extended family includes some 30 houseplants and hundreds of outdoor plants, including 250 trees, which are her main passion. Spengler currently splits her life between San Francisco and the French Basque Country, though she was raised in Alaska, giving her experience of gardening in a range of climates.