10X Your Vegetable Harvest - Attract the Best Pollinators to Your Garden. 

I’m a beekeeper and need to correct your comment about honey bees not being interested in pollen. They gather pollen in little sacks on their back legs and carry it back to their hive where it is made into bee bread which is used to feed eggs and uncapped larvae.

I have a butterfly bush somewhat spilling into my garden due to it being so huge and the flowers weighing it down, but that thing alone draws ALL of the pollinators into my yard and garden. I sit outside and watch them at times its the most beautiful peaceful sight seeing soooo many different (species) of insects and birds at once co existing and sharing the same flowers not afraid of, bothering or attacking one another but simply just being and moving on with their business no drama what so ever. We humans need to take notes.. It sounds crazy but that butterfly bush in my yard symbolizes the beautiful Diversity in our world and how we are so different yet all have the SAME goal which is to LIVE and achieve happiness, and peace. I wish anyone reading this peace and happiness in your life. 😃

I'll admit it, I've become a bee hoarder! At the start of this spring I began planting flowers. Now it seems like every bee in the neighborhood is self isolating in my yard. I too was shocked. In recent years I did notice a decline in their numbers.

Yes, have noticed less butterflies, less birds, less bees. Then again, I was raised in the 60's when flocks of birds flew, and children ran with butterflies. It is a different world. You make a good point about what can happen with our food supply if we continue to ignore what is happening. Humans rely on pollinators, as do other animals for their food supply.

I have only seen a couple of bees this year. I am really concerned about this. I am trying to hand pollinate my squash and zucchini. It’s crazy. My grandfather farmed all of his life and I can guarantee you that he never had to hand pollinate anything. By the way he lived to be 102 years old. Always raised his own food. Thanks for your helpful videos

I've been watching videos on beekeeping. It's very fascinating. What amazes me is their body language how they communicate where flowers are. The queen bee will however find a nearby hive to mate with and she'll return to the original hive to lay her eggs. It would be great to have a hive in your garden. Since the queen lays about 1,000 eggs a day. As bees are scarce in nature, you can find a few Amazon vendors who sell 3 lb of honey bees. Just a thought.

This year I incorporated a lot of flowers in my garden. I had 12 milkweed plants but they ate them all. I've released 4 already and I am waiting on 10 more to emerge. I planted a lot of sunflowers this year. I also rooted my lavender in water in a 2 weeks along with my other herbs. I'm going to do more because it's faster than growing from seeds.

Pollinators are the most essential piece of successful gardening! Great job with your explanation to inform those beginning gardeners!

I have been planting torch sunflower, also known as Mexican sunflower. Bees, swallow tail butterflies, and monarchs love them. I live in the metro Detroit area. Dill and the torch sunflower bring a lot of them. I have double downed on them,they are starting under my grow lights right now!

For my zone 8b garden I have 20 x 4 pollinator zone. I have a large mix of plants, but mostly I attract bees. Here are some of the ones I've found the bees love: Cat mint. They love that stuff Lavender Bee Balm Rosemary, thyme, sage, marjoram, mint, and basil in bloom. Clover - I put it the grass and don't cut too low. They love that too. I'm still experimenting with other plants to bring in even more.

I made the fateful choice of planting out Thai basil last year and the bees absolutely love the flowers. I've made it my goal to grow more in the upcoming year because they not only attract pollinators (and taste good), but also seem to be drought tolerant. Purple basil also showed similar traits and I want to grow more of it as well.

Our fig trees seem to attract a lot of bees and we've never been stung picking fruit (so far!). We love them.

I have noticed a lack in the amount of pollinators as well. When I was a kid, there were butterflies everywhere! I'd see them all the time on the bus ride home from school, usually either sulphurs or tiger swallowtails. We have two lantana bushes that grow on our property, a plant that is KNOWN for its ability to attract lots of butterflies. They used to COVER the bushes every summer and my little sister and I would just stalk and chase them. Now, we see a LOT less fluttering around our yard. The lantana bushes flower, but aren't covered in butterflies and look sad because of the lack of activity. On a okay day, you'll probably see 2 or 3 butterflies on them and of the same species. Butterflies are an indicator species and help to determine the health of the environment because of their fragility, so if you're seeing less and less of them then something is off. Even on days where the butterflies are more active than usual, you'll notice a lack in diversity of different species of butterflies. You'll probably have a day where you see only fritillaries or sulphurs flying around but no other butterfly species!! Im even starting to see less bumblebees every year! They SWARMED to our azalea bushes in the spring!!

Basil is perfect for bees. I planted around 5 different variety of basil . I’ve had basil for years since I leave it to selfseed itself. I’ve not bought store basil for at least 7 years now.

Yes, I've noticed a reduction in pollinators. I really appreciate this video.

I just learned this from a professional beekeeper that lives in our neighborhood. He places buckets in trees with a lemon slice in a pill bottle to attract bees to remove them from other peoples' properties. He also places lemon peel slices in his garden to do the same thing. He simply hangs a slice of lemon peel adjacent to where he has blooming flowers.

Milkweed surprisingly just appeared in our garden one year. So we set aside some land around it ever since.

You are so right about bees liking Lavender. They’re all over our Lavender patch. I grow branching sunflowers as a bee attractor on the edge of the veg garden. I get cut flowers and also sturdy stalks for bean poles, etc. Thanks for the cool video. Looking forward to the live stream tomorrow. Reminder set!

Thanks for reminding all of us how much we need pollinators to survive. I love bees and especially bumble bees which I have only seen one a year. And love that little pup next to you. How adorable and cute.

I know this is an older video, but I wanted to add... Garlic Chives are huge bee magnets. I grow them in z9a but don’t harvest. I let them flower and seed every year. The bees go crazy for the blooms, especially in fall and winter.

I belong to several beekeepers groups on Facebook. Our bees are dying out throughout the world. In USA we have a severe problem with Verroa mites, among other bee ailments and viruses. In addition, recent forest fires wiped out quite a few colonies/ apiaries. So, you are correct in seeing them less and less.

If you live in a cold area, throw the seeds of milkweed out where you want them in the fall. They need a cold spell. I live in KY, where springs can freeze. Never mind that! I sow basil seeds straight into the ground and in about 2-3 weeks, there are the very cute, VERY robust seedlings. I have two now and expecting more, of a great Italian variety. The plants in the past were strong & beautiful. Right now I have two gardens, totalling 1900 square'. They're bothe community gardens. The one I've had the longest & shared with my bf is the beautiful, "chocolate cake" garden...we each get 100'! I have a chunk of catmint, collards, one row of lettuce, basil, chicory...and 50' of local pollinators 💚🌼🌻💚. In the other garden, where the soil is one step away from cement, I have a perennial pollinators garden and several new sections dug & lightly amended with weed material & compost. They're coming along! I have a few more demanding pollinators in the old (richer) mound, and I'm moving society garlic all over the place. Lots of others too--2nd-year carrots, plenty of herbs, all the things that baffle beetles and draw the bees & butterflies. I hope this will be a good year out at the Rough & Ready.

I noticed the lack of bees in my garden a few years ago.I decided to do something and grew plants which bees and bumblebees like....such as comfrey,borage and wild geranium.And they absolutly love it .Thank you Brian for this important video....we need those pollinators!

Plant borage everywhere. Empty lots, cracks in the cement, ends of long driveways, one in each cornor of your yard (remember kids,dogs,cats and bees dont mix) away from people areas. I plant it in the areas of unwanted trespassing. Hundreds of bees are a great deterrent to unwanted foot traffic. Borage makes a great refeshing sun tea, to beat the heat. Borage saves bees.

In Fairfax Virginia pollinators have become very minimal. To help with this problem, I have built a solitary bee house to attract solitary bees. I also plant nustritiums and marigolds among my garden vegetables. I practice the "edible gardening" technique and have azaleas and other flowers close to my vegetables.

I planted Borage, and that really drew the bees.

I’ve definitely noticed less and less bees throughout my 30 years on this planet, but luckily we have some carpenter bees that call our property home. No idea they were better pollinators! I will be making a “bee hotel” ASAP to make sure they don’t make their way to the neighbors that spray them...

Your channel popped up on my feed today. Boy! Am I glad it did. Thank you for sharing your knowledge of gardening. I am learning a lot. You get right to the facts and no unnecessary tales.

The former owners of my 100 yr old house were all organic gargeners. Now I understand why the big milkweed plants found over near the garden. Lots of seeds got harvested this year... but I will plant them outside my fence because they are toxic to dogs. He tries to eat just about anything. I also have extra herbs that will go to flower. I planted about 2 dozen lavender from seed through stratification process and they are all doing well. Never knew about propagation through cuttings.

I love the tabs at the bottom of the video. Brilliant!

I love the tabs at the bottom of the video. Brilliant! I

I just added a small water fountain to my veggie garden. I have at least 5-6 bees drinking water everyday.

loved this.. believe it or not it was snowing here in New York all day yesterday so ready to get start planting!!!!

Great video and thanks for your effort here on RU-vid! You’ve become one of the best gardening channels on the site!

Since the lock down here in Hawaii I have noticed a large up tick in the insect population! I have lots of flowers that attract Bees and Butterfly's but they seem to really like my Ginger, Basil, Hibiscus and Plumeria. I still do a lot of hand pollination though, it just seems I get more produce!!

Thank you, very nicely done. Can’t wait to start

I live in Florida. I planted milkweed in several areas of my garden just for the monarch butterflies. i constantly get monarch catepillars going into chrysallis. I also have lots of parsley for the swallowtail butterflies. I cut the milkweed plants in half everytime they have been eaten by the catepillars. I take the cuts and set them back in the soil -- and they grow on their own! So I constantly have monarch butterflies flying around my garden. I feel very privileged to be able to help out the monarch butterfly population. I helped feed and grow over 100 monarch butterflies last year alone.

To attract mason bees, you also need a wet, muddy area. We have a very small stream and get a lot of mason bees.

Great suggestions and information! Thank you for sharing your experiences. I raise monarchs in our garden. All by accident from purchasing milkweed from a store and noticed caterpillars. Read up on how to raise them and went back to the store to collect all the monarch caterpillars and put them in my batch of milkweeds. Now it’s a hobby and helps my children appreciate Gods creation and that everything on earth has its purpose. Also we purchased a Bee Hotel... so cute! ✌🏼

I live about halfway up a mountain of red clay so in order to garden I had to build a raised bed. It is a large bed, about 15 x 20 and I surrounded the entire thing with flower beds that are full of plants that attract pollinators. It helps in attracting them but even with all those plants I am still seeing less and less pollinators every year. This year I decided to order myself some bees to help fix that problem. I have their hive set about 30 yards away from my garden. If all goes well I will likely add another hive, possibly two, next year. If more people would take the time to learn about bees, ( I took a couple local FREE classes) and then become beekeepers we could fix the problem. Thanks for this video!

Your baby dog is so gorgeous !!!

Thanks so much for this video and the lavender propagation tutorial!

Hi love your channel. When I saw the title for this episode I was excited to hear what you had to say. You are so right about the lack of bees. Hopefully all who subscribe and watch your channel realize how important not using pesticides in their gardens is to making sure we have bees around. The last few years I have been planting lots of flowers to attract bees, honey or solitary. In my garden they love lavender, cosmos, Borage and the big surprise was onion flowers. This year I let some of my onions go to seed and the bees go nuts for the flowets. I will now without exception plant extra onions just for the bees. I have a lemon and an avocado tree and the bees are all over them. I've also planted my zucchini plants close to my lavender just so the bees will be close by for pollination. Enjoy your channel very much!

Hey guys! Don’t forget to try a SWEET ALMOND BUSH. They attract a whole host of beneficial insects to your garden, up to (25) apparently. I have seen bees swarm this bush all year long, I live in Southwest Florida climate zone. They call the bush basically a beneficial insect power node attractor for your other flowers and garden. They also have a strong sweet almond, like the name, smell that is just amazing! Try one out, GL!

I love your channel it teaches me a lot of things I need to know you're amazing thank you

Wow I like how u have the up coming subjects at the bottom

I am so happy for you. Your channel is growing so fast.🌷🌺🌼🌻

Great video! ♥ Purple basil is good to eat, too! :) I think the only problem I do NOT have in my garden is the pollinator problem :))))) I have one of only a couple yards in the neighborhood with still alive and thriving mature trees and bushes. Most others killed their trees or they died on their own. So, I have a TON of pollinators. I have all kinds of song birds, hummingbirds, huge butterflies (seriously, they are size of my hand), honey bees, solitary bees, wasps - you name it :) Blooming Persian silk tree has been particularly good for attracting pollinators. It was a tiny dead stump when I first moved in. As a matter of fact, I have a bit of a New York apartment crisis in my backyard, because there are so many pollinators and they barely have anywhere to live. Lately I have been building nesting compounds for them, so they finally can have their own pad, instead of sitting all together in that bush :))))

Your videos are always so helpful. Its farming time here in Wy, and the farmers outside of my pasture, always put up cutter bee stands, and load them with trays of bees. Its great for my garden too! I'll be listening in the morning to your talk. Thank you p.s. I think they are called cutter bees! Very small bees, and suposedily they don't sting. lol They have bit me before, like a fly. ouch.

If you are able to grow any variety of Hollyhocks the bees love these. I have one Russian Yellow Hollyhock in my back yard and the bees come in droves. The flowers are beautiful. The stalk grows between 8-12 feet and the entire plant is medicinal. P.s. red spider mites also love it. Just organically spray them. Good luck with your gardens this year.

i agree i thought about a bee hive but i live in town last year i used a blossom set

Plant herbs. The bees will come. Rosemary, oregano, thyme.

I like the bee hotel idea. I am deep in a rice farming area so pollinators are scarce. I've been trying to attract more bees and toying with the idea of keeping bees. The hotel would give them a plce to stay but I wouldn't have to put in the time.

Fewer and fewer of them, not less and less :)

Thank you for sharing dude great tips. New garden RU-vidr from Ireland.

Glad to see you’re doing great!

Great info! I just ordered the bee box from your link. We have tons of wasps but fewer bees. Last year we did see some bees in the garden but our zucchini plant produced lots of flowers but only TWO zucchini. I’m going to rewatch and make notes to make sure I get plenty of pollenators Great job, Brian! See you tomorrow at 1 pm my time!

Love your videos thank you so much

You mentioned Cilantro. I would love it if you would do a video on it. I have never had much success with it but it is one of my favorite herbs along with Tarragon and Rosemary (which are easy).

Awesome lessons thank you so much! 👍🏻

I loved the carpenter bees around my yard, quite fuzzy! All they wanna do is visit the flowers or take a rest on the warm fence post ♥️

Another intresting detail in regards to solitary bees compared to honey bees is that honey bees wind threshold is significantly lower then larger bumble and carpenter bees. On a brezzy day the honeybees are grounded on a weather hold and the larger bees are bringing home the bacon.

I planted a "pommier fleur" it's the apple tree that has tiny pink fruit the size of cherries, it has just blossomed and it is full of bees, butterflies and other insects

I am really appreciating your videos. Your intro music is very nice , also ... Thank you!

I have been taking my vegetables outside for 2 weeks now. Last week I noticed bees and 2 different kinds of butterflies. They seem to like jalapeno blooms. 😀

Great info, appreciated the video.

We have a Potager garden and get dozens of bees even early on. We have a wide variety of flowering plants from bulbs to sweet peas. We have poppies, marigolds, wild flower patch and fruit trees. We also get wasps and last season for the first time I watched a WASPI like insect eating aphids. It looked quite gruesome.

Thanks! Never knew that about the other bees

Awesome video!

yes in Australia I have noticed lots less bees & butterflies..Now I plant seeds constantly to encourage bees & beneficial bugs..It has definately increased their population.

Loving the rabbit ears! ☺️

For propagating, I have used aloe Vera plant for rooting. I put in blender and then dip stem. Plant as usual w some humidity. Works wonders!! You should try this.

Way cool shirt GUY!! You made me smile!!

Glad you're doing better...You look focused.

Good videos. Very informative. Look forward to more

A buddy of ours (beekeeper) set 6 bee boxes 100yds from our garden.

Oregano attract an unusual amount of, a verity of bees, like no other plant in my garden. Lo profile, no maintenance. Perennial in zone 6.

love the bee hotel

Atari shirt, gorgeous plants and flowers, super-cute dog, and very helpful advice. A++++ !! Thanks! Liked and Subscribed!

Looking forward to that tour at your friends place

If you plant the right stuff, they will come. If all you have growing is a vegetable garden with grass or pavement, don't expect to get many. They're going to go to places with lots of opportunities for flowers. Just make sure the flowers you have actually attract pollinators as a lot of cultivars they sell at garden centers are basically just for show. Ever since I planted milkweed, I've had monarchs every year. Not common milkweed, but butterfly weed and swamp milkweed. Common will pop up everywhere and I still want a somewhat contained landscape. Some people may want common though if they have the space and are ok with it spreading.

I have found that lupine really brings the bees in. They also seem to really like Chinese Houses. I have planted a wild flower garden (Organic native species) and that with all the blackberries I have; I seem to be the spot now in the neighborhood. I have not been successful growing milkweed. Would love to pull in more butterflies. Also don't forget to provide water for the bees. I use a shallow plant drain tray with some rocks for them to land on to get a drink. It works have watched them drinking from it.

Nice video! So many do not take pollinators into account. I'm in process of making a border around my main garden plot and dedicate it to floral companion plants and native plants for pollinators :)

Thank you so much

good to know I just started some milkweed this year

Wow nice garden

nice video with some usefull info

150,000 subs today!!! You’re on fire!!! Congratulations!

Dill and parsley are really good at attracting butterfly's I always plant lots of extra.

great video!! thank you for the reminder about mason, leafcutter and carpenter bees!! Looking forward to the live stream!! BTW, What did you name chickens?

I grow tree collards for the white moths too there’s a lime yellow colored on too. These moths will dance together an swirl through the air.

Bravo on the bee house. I been lookin up how to attract carpenter bees, and aint found squat.

How did I miss this video! I released 6 female Monarchs a week ago! 🦋 Have tons of Milkweed in the yard! 🦋

Another valuable video! I didn’t know you could propagate lavender from cuttings, I’m super excited! By the way, have you thought about raising a few hives of bees on your beautiful backyard? You should give it a try, sounds like you live in a warm enough place not to loss any when winter comes.

Thank for sharing.. always a pleasure to learn about plants, try some lavender, pride of Madeira, big cone flowers , also self seeds itself, big plant an lived a long time an drought tolerant!

There are definitely fewer bees. Especially honey bees. I’m adding a lot of flowers and herbs this year for them and looking into bee 🐝 keeping in future seasons.

I live in the mtns of OR I’ve been here 3 years now... the first summer I was here there was a plethora of different varieties of bees it was almost too much sometimes to be outside and now this past summer there was hardly any bees at all. I’d also like to note that the first winter I spent here there was 6 ft of snow and this winter the most we’ve gotten is 10 inches..

I planted Black and Blue Salvia and it is absolutely covered in bees as long as it has flowers. It's invasive so I grow it in a container.

My yard is filled with yellow cosmos and other plants that pollinators love. But the number of honey bees here is near zero. We do have butterflies, carpenter bees, and bumble bees. The butterflies absolutely love the cosmos.

I have read that milkweed is toxic for ducks and therefore decided not to plant any as I have recently acquired 6 ducks. Going to try and plant it in the front yard where they won't have access!