Honey bee flowers: Top 9 flowers that produce the best nectar | Racine County Eye (2024)

Oftentimes, when we hear about or see honey, we get curious and ask ourselves:

Why do bees require nectar?
What do they do with it?
How do they produce honey?
What do they do with it?

Well, to answer precisely, nectar is the food that keeps honey bees alive. It gives them carbohydrates to survive, and eventually, they are put in the home as cells. This enables them to feed their kids, who later do the same process when they become old. It comes from flowers, which you can find on My Global Flowers’ website. They sell sympathy flowers to their customers.

Moreover, to achieve high-quality honey, you need bees to produce premium-quality nectar, which will then be reflected in honey production. For this, they require flowers to have the best nectar, which gives them the necessary energy to move from flower to flower and create good honey. Besides, this helps in cross-pollination, for which you see different flowers all around.

Therefore, to explore the subject further, we will discuss some of the best flowers that produce high-quality nectar. You can plant them in your garden and breed bees to obtain honey, a great substitute for sugar.

Top flowers that produce the best nectar for bees

We humans depend on plants and trees to get food and give necessary nutrition to our bodies. Similarly, the bees do the same. They rely on flowers to provide them with significant nutrition for themselves and their kids. Also, besides nectar, they also eat pollen, which gives them the protein and fat to grow fast.

Here are a few top flowers that enable honeybees to produce high-quality honey.

Aster

Not the director, but the flower, we mean. Aster is a native flower of North America, where you see a blanket of asters showing a beautiful imagery of purple sheets spread over the green field. The flowers are very familiar to honeybees, as every year, bees visit them to collect nectar and pollen.

Hence, they are able to produce high-quality pollen and nectar from the pollen and nectar they consume. They grow in moist, well-drained soil. This enables the plants to grow properly and flaunt the flowers to the honey bees. They mostly grow between August and December. Sometimes, the duration is longer due to the geography and climatic conditions.

Moreover, with little exposure to the sun, asters can grow very well and spread across the field like a warm blanket on winter mornings. Therefore, they are able to attract late-season pollinators like honey bees and butterflies.

Lavender

Another flower that enables honeybees to collect the best nectar and pollen is Lavender. They are native to Europe, especially Bulgaria, which is a leading producer of Lavender. It blooms between July and August, which perfectly attracts the bees around the area. That way, you can have lavender honey, which is a good thing to cure sore throats and coughs.

Therefore, if you want to see a lavender garden, you must sow it during early spring or around April. This will enable them to bloom perfectly in summer and early fall. Furthermore, they require proper sunshine to bloom properly, which they will get during summer.

Lastly, they can grow in well-drained or sandy soil. This means you don’t have to roll the sheets too much to grow them in your backyard. In addition, it will enable you to produce lavender honey and build a proper business around it. Lastly, you will get an appropriate remedy at home to cure bacterial growth in your body.

Mint

Getting a taste of Mint honey is like finding a pearl in the ocean. It is hard to produce mint honey, as people don’t invest much in mint plantations. They are mostly seen as the form of wild honey, which you can find randomly in forests and gardens. Moreover, there are many species of mints, which the bees absolutely adore.

One of them is Argentinian mint, which grows on the wetlands. They can provide the best nectar and pollen to honeybees to produce high-quality honey. Furthermore, if you live in an area where there is fertile soil, you can easily produce mint. That way, you will have a supplement for your co*cktails or mocktails and taste the best honey.

However, you should check the PH level of the soil, which should be on the neutral or acidic side. That will enable the production of the best mint plants. Lastly, you should ensure that your plant gets the best of sunshine. This is because it will accelerate the fast growth of the plants and attract honey bees around them.

Sunflowers

Sunflowers are often associated as a crop, as a psychological gateway for a human to set their mood right and become happy. The happy flowers also make bees happy, as they can collect the best nectar and pollen from them. This enables honeybees to get necessary nutrients like protein, fat, and carbohydrates from the flower. Hence, they are able to produce high-quality for you to consume.

If you want to grow the flowers, it’s best to plant them in the winter or early spring so that they can become the ultimate summer flower. Furthermore, it requires proper sunshine to grow and flaunt its beautiful yellow petals. And that attracts bees to collect food from them. Moreover, you should grow them in well-drained soil, whose pH level revolves around slightly acidic to alkaline.

In addition, sunflower honey is low in cholesterol, and it will give you a premium butterscotch feel. That will surely show you the roadmap of heaven at one go. Lastly, with their gentle taste, and beautiful aroma, you can easily grow sunflowers in your backyard to taste sunflower honey.

Allium

Allium is a favorite flower of honeybees, as it is high in nectar. This enables them to get high-quality food to produce some premium quality honey. Furthermore, the sugar concentration in Allium is high, around 70% to 75%. This motivates honeybees to collect the best nectar and pollen. Also, the surface area of Allium is big, which enables the honeybees to sit on the flower and collect nectar.

Therefore, if you want honey, which is rich in natural sweetness, then you can harvest it in your garden or backyard. For that, you need to plant them during winter. That way, they will bloom under the full sun of late spring and summer. In addition, you require fully drained soil whose pH level is around the acidic direction.

Consequently, all these features will transform your garden into purple pom poms all around. Lastly, you will see bees hovering over the flowers and taking in all the sweet nectar and pollens to produce honey.

Catmint

Another favorite flower of honeybees is catmint. The long purple flowers are known for their great aesthetics and great aroma. Besides, they provide high-quality nectar to bees to produce honey and feed humans and their children. Even gardeners around America prefer catmints, as they are easy to manage and good for bee harvesting.

Therefore, you can easily plant in your garden and enable the honeybees to pollinate them. Furthermore, they are easy to grow, as they grow in any pH type. They care less about the soil being acidic, neutral, and alkaline. Consequently, you can plant them during the fall or spring. That way, you can see them blooming in spring or fall. Their blooming season stretches from late spring to fall.

Moreover, they grow on any soil, whether they are clay, rocky, sandy or loamy soil. They require perfect sunshine, which will enable them to grow properly. There will surely, lots of honeybees and you can produce the best honey to consume. Hence, you can remove the sugar from the grocery list.

Chives

Honeybees love chives. They are a storage of nectar and pollen. That’s why if you grow chives on window boxes or small pots, you see honey bees sitting on the blossoms. They are rich in nectar and are pollen-friendly plants. This allows bees to sit on them and eat their food.

Hence, you can grow chives in your garden. You can segregate a small area where you can grow the plants. That way, you can also use them in your foods and soups to make it more tasty and healthy. All they require is:

• Soil that is rich in nutrients and has the necessary minerals
• Full-throttle sunlight accelerates photosynthesis and their growth
• Lastly, you should ensure that the pH level of the soil should be around the slightly acidic to neutral region

All of these factors ensure that chives can grow perfectly to give you the best honey for your home. Also, to get the best taste of chives, you should grow them in moist soil. It accelerates their growth and development.

Snapdragon

Snapdragon is one of the flowers made for honeybees. This is because they are the only pollinators, who can open the flower and collect the nectar and pollen. Snapdragons are rich in nectar and pollen and provide adequate food for bees to collect and transform into honey. Hence, you will see bees moving around the snapdragon flowers. The way bees collect honey and the sight is brilliant for collecting brilliant photographs.

Furthermore, the snapdragon honey is good for:

• Boosting energy levels in your body and removing the fatigue from your body
• It improves the sleep cycle, which improves your mental health
• It is a great replacement for sugars and artificial sweeteners

Therefore, if you want to grow the flowers, you need to have fertile or well-drained soil where they can grow properly. In addition, they need proper sunshine to accelerate their food-making process. Lastly, you need soil whose pH level is around neutral or slightly acidic. Consequently, you will see lots of bees hovering over your garden and boosting your honey production.

Bee balm

Bee balm, or Monarda, is a well-known flower among the bee family, especially the honeybees, as they can collect the best nectar and pollen. That’s why every expert suggests people plant bee balm in their garden to get the best wild honey. The tubular form flower enables bees to collect nectar to produce honey.

Furthermore, it is a pollinator-friendly flower that attracts honey bees around the world. In addition, it is used in herbal preparations and provides useful medicines. For example, it is used to make mouth gargles. This way, you can get fresh breath and have a healthy smile. Moreover, bee balm honey contains anti-bacterial and anti-fungal features, protecting you from fever and cough.

To grow them properly in your garden, you need soil that is either moist, clay, or fully-drained. That way, they can grow properly and get the necessary nutrients from the soil. Also, you should ensure that the soil is either on acidic or neutral side. Lastly, sunlight is needed; whether it comes fully or partially, it does not affect their growth. Hence, you will be able to get aromatic leaves and best-in-taste honey.

For the best honey, invest in good flowers

In the end, we can say that nectar’s quality is necessary to produce the best quality honey. Therefore, you need to invest in flowers, which are rich in nectar and pollen and are easily accessible for honeybees to visit. For that, you can plant the flowers mentioned in the above discussion. They will enable you to produce the best honey and build your business around it.

FAQs

Here are a few frequently asked questions.

Which flower makes the best honey?
Flowers of blackberries, citrus plants and herbs have a great hand in making the best honey.

Which is the No. 1 honey in the world?
Manuka because it contains methylglyoxal (MGO). It has both antiviral and antibacterial properties, which fastens your healing abilities.

How many flowers are required to produce honey?
Bees have to travel to 50 to 100 flowers to get nectar that produces honey.

Which honey is 100% pure?
Pure Manuka honey is 100% pure honey.

What is the most expensive honey?
Elvish honey costs $6,800 per gram – thus making it the most expensive in the world.

Which honey is rare?
Pitcairn honey is the rarest and purest form of honey in the world.

What is the real color of honey?
Nearly colorless to dark brown is the real honey.