Bee friendly Top 10: The most beautiful fall flowers for bees

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Apples, pumpkins, grapes, chanterelles - in late summer and fall, nature provides us with so many tasty treats. To give something back to nature, we should make sure that our little helpers also have enough to eat. Because without our pollinating insects, we wouldn't have a harvest either!

When the days get shorter, wild bees are particularly happy about nectar-filled flowers. From September onwards, there is a lack of food in many places, making it difficult for wild bees to provide their brood with sufficient winter provisions. It is therefore all the more important that we sow lots of late-flowering plants in our garden and on the balcony.

In the following article, we have compiled our top 10 bee-friendly autumn flowers for you. With these late bloomers, you will have a colorful garden until October, so that wild bees, bumblebees and other pollinators will find enough nectar and pollen for the winter. By the way: All the plants listed here are included in Bee friendly bee seed ;-)

Bee friendly Top 10 bee-friendly flowers for the fall: alfalfa

Die Bee friendly Top-10 der bienenfreundlichen Blumen für den Herbst: Die Luzerne
Name Luzerne (Medicago sativa)
Family Leguminous plants (Fabaceae)
Flower color Blue to violet
Growth height 30-90 centimeters
Light Sunny
Flowering time June to September

Health food fans may know alfalfa under the name alfalfa. The sprouted seeds of alfalfa are sold as alfalfa sprouts! But alfalfa is not just a healthy snack for us humans. Butterflies, bumblebees, honeybees and wild bees are very happy about the rich source of nectar, which blooms until September.

Die Bee friendly Top-10 der bienenfreundlichen Pflanzen für den Herbst: Phacelia (oder der Bienenfreund)

Die Bee friendly Top-10 der bienenfreundlichen Pflanzen für den Herbst: Phacelia (oder der Bienenfreund)
Name Phacelia oder Bienenfreund (Phacelia Ranunculaceaetanacetifolia)
Family Raublattgewächse
Flower color Blue to violet
Wuchshöhe 30–70 Zentimeter
Light Sonnig bis halbschattig
Flowering time June to OctoberSunny to semi-shady

The name says it all: the lavender-colored flowers with filigree pistils provide your pollinators with pollen and nectar until October - Phacelia tanacetifolia simply belongs in every bee-friendly garden! And don't worry: even if you don't have green fingers, the bee friend will thrive, as this plant is very easy to care for. Nevertheless, the flowers are beautiful - so there is no reason why the bee friend should be missing from your garden.

Top 10 bee-friendly late bloomers: Buckwheat

Top-10 der bienenfreundlichen Spätblühern: Buchweizen
Name Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum)
Family Knotweed
Flower color White to reddish
Growth height 50-70 centimeters
Light Sunny to semi-shady
Flowering time July to September

Buckwheat is another multi-talented late bloomer. It's not just bees that love buckwheat: vegetarians, vegans and farmers do too! Buckwheat is used both in wholefood cuisine and in agriculture as a fertilizer plant.

Colorful through autumn with these late-flowering plants: The marigold

Bunt durch den Herbst mit diesen spätblühenden Pflanzen: Die Ringelblume
Name Ringelblume (Calendula officinalis)
Family Korbblütler
Flower color Orange to yellow
Wuchshöhe 20-80 centimeters
Light Sunny to semi-shady
Flowering time May to October

Beautiful, useful, healthy: the marigold is a real all-rounder in the garden. We humans use it as a medicinal plant; bees and other beneficial insects love its nectar; and pests are repelled by the marigold. The marigold is therefore beautiful and versatile. So it's no wonder that it is one of the oldest ornamental plants.

Pollen and nectar until fall? Not all varieties are bee-friendly: the sunflower

Pollen und Nektar bis in den Herbst? Nicht alle Züchtungen sind bienenfreundlich: Die Sonnenblume
Name Gewöhnliche Sonnenblume (Helianthus annuus)
Family Korbblütler
Flower color Gelb
Wuchshöhe 40–300 centimeters
Light Sonnig
Flowering time July to October

The sunflower embodies midsummer like no other plant. Despite the extreme heat, the sunflower grows to a height of up to three meters so that it gets the full broadside of the summer sun. Like many other wild flowers, both we humans and wild bees benefit from the sunflower: we process the sunflower seeds into oil; wild bees and other insects enjoy the rich pollen and nectar. As the sunflower blooms well into October, its pollen is a welcome snack for wild bees, which don't find much to eat at this time of year.

Food for humans and wild bees until September: dill

Nahrung für Mensch und Wildbiene bis in den September: Dill
Name Dill (Anethum graveolens)
Family Doldenblütler
Flower color Gelb
Wuchshöhe 60–100 centimeters
Light Sunny to semi-shady
Flowering time Juli bis September

The herb dill has been part of the human diet for thousands of years - whether in cucumber salad or as a digestible tea that helps with flatulence. If you don't eat your dill before it flowers in July, your wild bees will be happy to visit until late summer.

Top 10 fall plants for bees: Common yarrow

Top 10 der Herbstpflanzen für Bienen: Gemeine Schafgarbe
Name Gemeine Schafgarbe (Achillea millefolium)
Family Korbblütler
Flower color Weiß
Wuchshöhe 15–60 centimeters
Light Sonnig
Flowering time June to October

The common yarrow is not as common as its name suggests. Achillea millefolium has been used as a medicinal plant for thousands of years. Even the Greek warrior Achilles is said to have known about the healing properties of yarrow! If you believe the myth, Achilles treated his wounded soldiers with yarrow.

These flowers provide nectar and pollen for winter provisions: ribwort plantain

Diese Blüten bieten Nektar und Pollen für den Winterproviant: Spitzwegerich
Name Spitzwegerich (Plantago lanceolata)
Family Wegerichgewächs
Flower color Braun
Wuchshöhe 5–50 centimeters
Light Sunny to semi-shady
Flowering time May to September

A weed for some, a medicinal plant for others: ribwort plantain also has healing powers. You are probably already familiar with this bee-friendly plant: it grows on many roadsides, in parks or on pastures. There, ribwort plantain feeds hungry bees until well into September. In your bee-friendly garden, ribwort plantain makes a particularly good gap filler. For example, you can sow it between your colorful bee plants to add some variety to your autumn bee pasture.

The Bee friendly Top 10 of bee-friendly late bloomers: Horned clover

Die Bee friendly Top 10 der bienenfreundlichen Spätblühern: Hornschotenklee
Name Hornschotenklee (Lotus corniculatus)
Family Hülsenfrüchtler
Flower color Gelb
Wuchshöhe 20–40 centimeters
Light Sunny to semi-shady
Flowering time May to September

The yellow flowers of the horned clover adorn many meadows, roadsides and fallow land. This type of clover provides food for bumblebees and other wild bees in late summer, when most other plants are no longer in bloom.

Wild bees love colorful asters in autumn: mountain aster

Wildbienen lieben farbenfrohe Astern im Herbst: Bergaster
Name Bergaster (Aster amellus)
Family Korbblütler
Flower color Violet to blue
Wuchshöhe 30–60 centimeters
Light Sonnig
Flowering time August to October

The aster should not be missing from any list of fall plants! Autumn asters are bee-friendly perennials, most of which originally come from North America - but there are also native species! For example, the mountain aster, a native plant in Europe. It is now no secret that autumn asters are bee-friendly and beautiful.

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