You don’t have to install a bee house to provide habitat for stem-nesting bees. By planting the right flowers and following some simple pruning guidelines, you can help peaceful bees create their nests naturally.
About 30% of our native bees nest in cavities above ground. Carpenter bees dig their own tunnels in soft wood. Mason bees, leafcutter bees and some yellow-faced bees use existing tunnels, like hollow plant stems or old cavities abandoned by beetles or carpenter bees.
All these habitats are dwindling, which is where us backyard gardeners come in.
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How to Create Habitat for Stem-Nesting Bees
Embracing your yard’s wild side is key. Leaving dead stems for insects might seem strange to tidy gardeners, but it’s worth it to help the bees. Here’s how it works.
- Fall/Winter: Resist the urge to prune your plants (seed heads = bird food!).
- Early Spring: Cut the stems down to various lengths from 8 to 24 inches. This creates widths to fit different types of bees.
- Spring/Summer: Watch busy bees lay eggs in the cavities. Leave the stems intact for another year, so the babies can grow and hatch next spring/summer.
- Fall/Winter: Repeat with the next crop of stems.
See details and graphics of the process in this Xerces Society explainer.
If you want to minimize the appearance of dead sticks in your yard, try succession planting. In the spring, these hollow coneflower stems are hidden by daffodils. Then in the summer, new coneflower foliage grows around them.
Hollow vs. Pithy Stems: Hollow stems are move-in ready, since they already have cavities. Pithy stems, like raspberry and hydrangea canes, have soft wood that is easy for carpenter bees to excavate.
Plants for Stem-Nesting Bees
These plants have hollow or pithy stems that are well-suited for bees. It’s best to choose native flowers that provide food for your local bees, so they can easily stock their nests with quality pollen and nectar.
Aster
- Genus: Symphyotrichum
- Native Range: Throughout the U.S. and Canada
Bees love asters for their late-season buffet as well as their long stems for nesting. Asters can get up to six feet tall depending on the variety. They have a reputation for being spreaders, which can be a good thing! Put them in a tough corner of your yard and let them go wild.
Honestly though, who wouldn’t want these beauties taking over their garden?
(Photo Credit: Cédric Toelen)
Bee Balm
- Genus: Monarda
- Native Range: Central and eastern U.S. and parts of southern Canada
Also known as wild bergamot, bee balm is a summer bloomer with spiky flowers enjoyed by bees and gardeners alike. It grows up to four feet tall in sunny spots.
Look who else loves bee balm!
(Photo Credit: Melissa Burovac)
Blazing Star
- Genus: Liatris
- Native Range: Central and eastern U.S. and Canada
Blazing stars grow tall spikes covered in fluffy flowers offering pollen and nectar. They can get up to six feet tall but more commonly reach around two to four feet tall. That’s plenty of room for a bee to set up a nest.
(Photo Credit: Ember Navarro)
Coneflower
- Genus: Echinacea and Rudbeckia
- Native Range: Central and eastern U.S. and parts of southern Canada
Coneflowers come in a seemingly endless variety of colors to brighten up your garden. They thrive in sunshine, and their cone centers make a lovely landing pad for happy bees.
Goldenrod
- Genus: Solidago
- Native Range: Throughout the U.S. and Canada
Goldenrods can grow over six feet tall in some cases, with hollow stems ready to house bees. Their autumnal blooms offer pollen and nectar for pollinators.
(Photo Credit: Jeffrey Hamilton)
Joe Pye Weed
- Genus: Eutrochium
- Native Range: Central and eastern U.S. and Canada
Joe Pye weed is due for a rebranding. This native plant grows up to eight feet tall with stunning pink puffs of blooms that you could hardly consider weeds. Instead, what if we called this “Joe Pye’s low-maintenance flower that is adored by nesting bees”?
Milkweed
- Genus: Asclepias
- Native Range: Throughout the U.S. and Canada
Milkweed is another non-weed that provides habitat for bees. Some types might die back in the winter, but supposedly swamp milkweed works well for stem-nesting bees.
As the only host plant that monarch butterflies can lay their eggs on, milkweed is vital for pollinator gardens. Just know that you might want to plant it in a container, because it’s especially aggressive.
Read More: How to create habitat for monarch butterflies
Sunflower
- Genus: Helianthus
- Native Range: Throughout the U.S. and Canada
A crowd favorite, sunflowers are often covered in happy bees. While some giant sunflowers might be too big for little nesting bees, the smaller sunflower stems provide snug cavities.
Shrubs for Stem-Nesting Bees
Some larger shrubs can also make wonderful bee hotels, with soft canes for bees to tunnel into. Prune the shrubs with clean cuts on their regular schedule. Then watch little tenants arrive in the spring and summer.
Bramble
- Genus: Rubus
- Native Range: Throughout the U.S. and Canada (and everywhere else…like probably Mars?)
The pithy canes of raspberries, salmonberries, thimbleberries and other native brambles are ideal for stem-nesting bees. Brambles might not be ornamental, but salmonberry flowers are surprisingly flashy.
Elderberry
- Genus: Sambucus
- Native Range: Throughout the U.S. and Canada
Elderberries feed the bees, hummingbirds and other birds. Some varieties, like blue elderberry, can make tasty wine and jam for humans, too. As very large shrubs, elderberries offer lots of pithy stems for bees.
Hydrangea
- Genus: Hydrangea
- Native Range: While a few hydrangeas are native to the eastern U.S., most are not native but grow well in zones 4 to 9.
You have to love hydrangeas in summer, with their deep green foliage and big pom poms in soothing hues.
Early spring hydrangeas, on the other hand, might not look appealing to most gardeners. But these soft, newly-pruned stems are a welcome sight to carpenter bees.
Rose
- Genus: Rosa
- Native Range: Throughout the U.S. and Canada
Rose canes make cozy homes for little yellow-faced bees, according to the Xerces Society. There are a variety of native roses to add woodland color and bee habitat to your yard, like this young baldhip rose (which I’m eager to see bloom someday!).
Related: Hardy PNW plants for dry shade
Sumac
- Genus: Rhus
- Native Range: Throughout the U.S. and parts of southern and eastern Canada
I can vouch for the softness of sumac wood, which is a cinch to prune. It brings all the cool cats to the yard and has stunning fall colors. Carpenter bees are welcome to join the party.
More Bee Habitat Resources
For an even easier way to create bee habitat, you can leave soft logs and tree snags in the garden for carpenter bees to call home. Here are some more ideas for your pollinator garden.
- Learn the basics of bee habitats from the Xerces Society.
- Read 100 Plants to Feed the Bees (this book shows the native ranges of plants and labels the ones that provide habitat).
- Find a quality bee house at Crown Bees.
- Check out my pollinator gardening guide for more ideas.
After getting my first bee house a few years ago, I absolutely fell in love with bees. This is from someone who is terrified of bee stings! Our native solitary bees are peaceful and almost never sting, and seeing them thrive in the garden is very rewarding.
Very interesting read about bees…lots of info and things I didn’t know. We get quite a few in our yard (along with the hummingbirds year round) in the spring/summer with all our different plants and flowers we have in our backyard and some in our front yard. I’m sure “your” bees are very appreciative of all you do for them to provide housing and food for them!! Good job Tara!!
Thanks, Judy! I love helping out the bees and seeing their numbers increase each year. That’s so cool you get bees and hummingbirds. We didn’t used to see a lot of hummingbirds, but now that we’ve added more bee plants, more hummingbirds have arrived, too. They like a lot of the same yummy flowers. 🙂