The most effective thing most people can do for bees is plant a succession of native flowers that bloom from early spring through late fall, and stop using pesticides on them. Everything else — bee hotels, water dishes, leaving stems standing — helps at the margins. And one popular idea, keeping a honey bee hive to "save the bees," often does not help wild bees at all. As a honey company, we think that is worth being straight about.
First, Which Bees Actually Need Saving
This is where most well-meaning effort goes astray.
Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are a managed, largely non-native livestock species in North America. They face genuine problems — Varroa mites, pesticide exposure, disease, and the stresses of commercial migratory pollination — and beekeepers in the United States have reported annual colony losses averaging roughly 40 to 50 percent over the past decade, according to the Bee Informed Partnership's annual survey. That is a real and serious agricultural issue.
But honey bees are not endangered. There are more managed honey bee colonies globally now than several decades ago, because beekeepers replace losses. The bees in actual trouble are the wild ones.
The United States is home to roughly 4,000 native bee species — bumble bees, mason bees, leafcutters, sweat bees, squash bees, mining bees. Most are solitary rather than social. Most do not make honey, do not live in hives, and do not sting readily. Many are in documented decline from habitat loss, pesticide use, disease spillover from managed hives, and climate shifts. Several bumble bee species have contracted dramatically in range, and the rusty patched bumble bee is federally listed as endangered.
Native bees are also outstanding pollinators, frequently more efficient per individual than honey bees for particular crops. Roughly 75% of leading global food crop types benefit to some degree from animal pollination, and native bees do a substantial and often uncredited share of that work. We wrote more about that dependency in why bees matter to the food supply.
What Actually Helps: Ranked
1. Plant Native, and Plant for Continuous Bloom
Native plants and native bees co-evolved. Some native bees are specialists that can only use pollen from a narrow group of plants — squash bees on cucurbits, for example — and an ornamental garden full of non-native cultivars offers them nothing.
The critical design principle is bloom succession. A garden that explodes in June and goes quiet by August creates a hunger gap. Aim for something in flower continuously:
- Early spring: willow, serviceberry, wild plum, crocus, native currant. Early bloom is disproportionately valuable because emerging queens are starving.
- Late spring to summer: penstemon, wild indigo, milkweed, bee balm, coneflower, anise hyssop.
- Late summer to fall: goldenrod, asters, joe-pye weed, sunflowers. Late bloom fuels the new queens that must survive winter, and it is the most commonly missing piece in home gardens.
Plant in clumps, not singles. Groupings of at least three to five plants of the same species let a foraging bee work efficiently. A scattered one-of-each border is much less useful.
Also skip the highly bred double-flowered ornamentals. Doubled petals are typically bred at the expense of accessible pollen and nectar, and a bee cannot reach anything through them.
2. Stop Spraying
Insecticides kill bees; that is their function. Neonicotinoids are the particular concern because they are systemic — taken up into the plant's tissues and expressed in the pollen and nectar itself, so the whole flower becomes toxic and stays that way for weeks or longer.
- Do not apply insecticides to anything in bloom.
- Check nursery plants before buying. Ornamentals are sometimes grown with neonicotinoid treatments, meaning a "pollinator-friendly" plant can arrive pre-loaded. Ask, or buy from native plant nurseries.
- Herbicides matter too — blanket lawn treatments eliminate clover and dandelion, which are significant early-season forage.
- Tolerate some leaf damage. A garden with a few chewed leaves is a functioning one.
3. Leave Nesting Habitat — the Step Almost Everyone Skips
Roughly 70% of native bee species nest in the ground, in bare or sparsely vegetated soil. A yard that is entirely lawn, dense mulch, or landscape fabric offers them nowhere to live, no matter how many flowers it has.
- Leave patches of bare, undisturbed soil in sunny, well-drained spots. This costs nothing and is frequently the limiting factor.
- Leave standing stems over winter. Most of the remaining 30% of native bees nest in hollow or pithy stems. Cutting everything back in fall removes next year's bees. Leave stems at 8–24 inches and cut back in late spring instead.
- Leave leaf litter in beds. Bumble bee queens overwinter just beneath it.
- Leave dead wood where it is safe to do so.
"Doing less" is genuinely one of the highest-impact interventions available, which is a rare thing in conservation.
4. Water, Done Properly
A shallow dish with pebbles or marbles breaking the surface gives bees a place to land and drink without drowning. Refresh it every few days so it does not breed mosquitoes. Useful, but a distant fourth behind flowers, no pesticides, and nesting sites.
5. Bee Hotels — With Caveats
Bee hotels are popular and photograph well, but a poorly maintained one concentrates parasites and disease and can do net harm. If you use one: choose replaceable paper liners or split blocks that can be opened and cleaned, keep tube diameters varied between roughly 3 and 10 mm, mount it facing morning sun and sheltered from rain, and clean or replace the nesting material annually. A neglected bee hotel is worse than none.
The Honest Part: Keeping Honey Bees Is Not Conservation
People frequently ask whether they should get a hive to help. It is a reasonable instinct and we make our living from honey bees, so we have every commercial reason to say yes. But keeping honey bees is agriculture, not conservation.
In some settings — particularly dense urban areas with limited forage — high concentrations of managed honey bee colonies can compete with wild bees for a finite supply of pollen and nectar, and can act as a route for pathogen spillover into wild populations. Adding hives to an area that is already short on flowers does not help native bees; it adds competitors.
Keep bees because you want to keep bees, and because you are prepared to manage mites and disease responsibly. If your goal is specifically to help pollinators, plant flowers and stop spraying. Those actions help honey bees and native bees simultaneously, and they are cheaper.
The most useful thing you can do for managed honey bees is support beekeepers who look after their colonies properly — which is why we work with small-scale beekeepers directly rather than buying on the commodity market. You can read about that on our honey benefits honey bees too page and in our story.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the single best thing I can do to help bees?
Plant native flowers with staggered bloom times so something is flowering from early spring through late fall, and stop using insecticides on them. Early spring and late fall bloom matter most, because those periods bracket the season when queens are emerging and when new queens are building reserves for winter. If you can only do one additional thing, leave a patch of bare soil for ground-nesting bees.
Should I get a beehive to help save the bees?
Not for conservation reasons. Honey bees are managed livestock and are not endangered, while roughly 4,000 native bee species are the ones in decline. In areas with limited forage, adding managed colonies can increase competition with wild bees and spread pathogens to them. Keep bees if you want to be a beekeeper, but plant flowers and avoid pesticides if your goal is helping pollinators.
When should I cut back my garden if I want to protect bees?
Late spring, not fall. Many native bees overwinter inside hollow or pithy plant stems, and bumble bee queens shelter under leaf litter. Cutting everything back and clearing leaves in autumn removes the next generation. Leave stems standing at 8 to 24 inches through winter and tidy up once temperatures are consistently warm.
Are honey bees endangered?
No. Honey bees face serious health pressures — US beekeepers have reported annual colony losses averaging roughly 40 to 50 percent over the past decade — but colony numbers are maintained because beekeepers replace losses. Several native bee species are genuinely threatened, and the rusty patched bumble bee is federally listed as endangered in the United States.
Do bee hotels actually work?
They can help cavity-nesting bees such as mason and leafcutter bees, but only if maintained. Unmaintained hotels accumulate parasites, mold, and disease and can harm the populations they attract. Use designs with removable paper liners or openable blocks, vary tube diameters between about 3 and 10 mm, position facing morning sun and sheltered from rain, and clean or replace nesting material every year.
The Short Version
Plant native, plant for bloom from March to October, plant in clumps, and put the sprayer away. Leave bare soil, standing stems, and leaf litter. Add water if you like. Skip the hive unless you actually want to be a beekeeper. The Xerces Society publishes regional native plant lists that are the best starting point for figuring out what belongs where you live.
A portion of every bottle we sell supports hive health and the beekeepers we source from — that is what "buy a bottle, save a bee" means to us. More on our ingredients and values page.