In my garden I always see the most honeybees on the mahonia in early spring, bumblebees are always working the garden phlox and the mountain mint is great for a whole variety of pollinators, mostly of the wasp and mud dauber kind.

I see our bees mostly on sedum and bee balm but they seem happy on lots of other plants such as buddleia, coneflowers, phlox, salvia. :)

Echinacea and goldenrod are always full of bees around here.

Calamintha - hands down the best bee plant in my garden.

Other good ones: Helenium, Veronica (really good) and any Sedum.

I noticed the bees were all over the sedum a good couple of weeks before the flowers even opened. Not sure if they were just excited with anticipation or if there was something else that attracted the.

Kevin

Kevin I noticed the bees were on my sedum before it bloomed as well. Thought maybe I just had confused bees. ;o)

I normally condone natives, but remember the bees being completely obsessed with the flowers on burford holly in my yard.

Agastache blue fortune and black adder are my biggest attractors. They LOVE these....

Very early: Crocus of all sorts

Right now
Helianthus microcephalus Lemon Queen
Late raspberries

And some Asters

Not frost-hardy but flowering non-stop Basil African Blue ( Ocimum purpurascens x kilimandsharicum or something), excellent for containers and fine in good soil
Lin

In spring, I'd say the lungworts seem to attract the most bees.

Had read that bees like flowers in the form of tall spikes. Certainly the culver's root in July attracts large numbers of bees. I also know that bees are really attracted to purple loosestrife.

Tall spikes aside, the bees most recently have been all over the helenium flowers.

Judging from last year, they'll next move to several types of fall aster, the last of the season to attract large numbers of bees being calico aster.

My biggest honey bee attractors are: Russian sage, Sullivant's milkweed, sedums, nepeta, calamintha, veronica & agastache.

Here, the bees like May Night Salvia, which blooms heavy in June and off an on all the rest of the growing season. Also popular are the butterfly bushes and right now, they really love my Longwood Blue Caryopteris.

Linda

Rosemary, echium, Grewia occidentalis (shrub), cassia bicapsularis 'Buttercream'. The bumblebees favor Tecoma stans. The native bees and flies like Gaura the best, by far.

My bee's seem to love the spotted bee balm and my Cerinthe Honeywort Major Purpurasces and my Ipomopsis rubra. I'm currently redoing most of my beds but hopefully they'll love the other pretties i plan on putting out just for them.

Local bees swarm all over the purple flowers - Russian sage, salvia chaemdryoides, s. guaranitica, Ultra Violet, Marcus and Six Hills Giant; agastache Black Adder, nepeta Walkers Low, Bigelow's Aster, aster Moench, mint, thyme and oregano, vitex.

They also like the sedums, salvia greggii Furmans Red and Wild Thing and red-, orange- and pink-flowered agastaches but blue is definitely preferred. Just as well because the hummers own all red flowers in our garden.

Cheryl

Agastache Blue Fortune, Sedum Pink Bomb and the many Torenia plants I have stay covered with bees and other pollinators.

They are *all over* salvia, all summer long. I have Mystic Spires and Black and Blue salvia (annual in my zone) and May Night perennial salvia. They go nuts over these salvia.

They also like butterfly bush but not nearly as much as the salvia. I've noticed they even prefer salvia over sedum - and I've got nice drifts of sedum right next to some of the salvias but nope, they hang out on the salvia and ignore the sedum.

They like caryopteris this time of year, and when the catmint is blooming, the bees enjoy that, too. When I used to grow veronica, that seemed to attract them, as well.

In spring they seem to particularly like quince and rhododendrons, but I also see them visiting columbine, Jacob's ladder, and lupine. Throughout summer and fall, I see them most often on catmint (Nepeta), culinary basil, bell flowered clematis, Agastache, Helenium Mardi Gras, and Penstemon.

This week I had the first honey bees I have seen this season visiting the basil in the veggie garden, though I have had many other bees all season.

This past Spring the bees seemed less numerous than usual, but their population has burgeoned over the summer and now there are zillions of them out there. They visit many flowers, but seem to particularly love the Cimicifuga, Monarda, Echinacea, Agastache, Sedum, Helianthus, Silphium perfoliatum, tall Zinnias, Tithonia, all Asters, all Solidago, and Oregano.

Second? Third?... Agastache Blue Fortune as a bee magnet. Even as the flower heads are browning, these plants are still loaded with bees. So many this year that I've not been able to cut back the plants for reblooming.

Besides the many bee varieties that cover my Agastache, I also spotted this Alianthus Webworm Moth the other day. Off the topic, I know.... but it's such a striking critter that I had to share.

{{gwi:268834}}

In my garden bees visit many of the same plants listed by others. Two not listed are hardy geranium and a plant that is always covered with bees, allium tuberosum, garlic chives.

I was very surprised this year to notice that the best plant in my yard for pollinators of all kinds, was Marjoram.

Every other plant in the garden pales in comparison. Dill, Cilantro, Sedums, Agastaches, all were covered with pollinators at one time or another but Majoram allowed to flower has been covered in pollinators for weeks and weeks and weeks. Longer than any other perennial. It shows no sign of stopping either.

Unfortunately, it did flop open in the middle, so next year I plan to give it support. It makes a nice cut flower for a vase to go with other cut flowers too.

Yup, forgot to mention Sedum and Veronica as major bee attractors.

If (big if) the Japanese beetle population continues to be depressed, it'll only help the bees rebound, as sprays for JBs tend to be toxic to bees.

I agree with Kevin, I planted calamintha this year just for the bees and wow, it is always loaded with butterflies and bees. It's also a very attractive plant.