Sow now to help bees this June
Find out why June can be a tricky time for pollinating insects to find the pollen and nectar that they need, and how you can help by starting to sow seeds now.
05 March 2023
Image credit: RHS Helen Yates
Explore the meaning behind the words in bold in our glossary at the bottom of this page.
Why do bees need our help in June?
By June, the early spring flowers have finished and are starting to go to seed, but summer blooms are not yet flowering. This means that there is a ‘gap’ of a few weeks when can be hard for pollinators to find enough flowers with nectar and pollen to feed themselves and to take back to their young. This is known as the June pollen gap.
Image: Bumblebee on Ox-eye daisy (Credit: RHS Mark Waugh)
How can we help?
If you have some space in your school where you could grow some flowering plants, you can help pollinators during those tricky weeks, but you need to get sowing now if you want to have flowers by June.
You could sow flower seeds in recycled containers, window boxes, raised beds or flower beds. You could also make sure that some patches of grass around the school are left unmown over the spring and summer months. Unmown areas are likely to have flowers such as dandelions in June, which are a brilliant source of nectar and pollen, as well as daisies - another important food source for pollinators.
You can find suggestions of plants you could grow to help pollinators in June here.
Image: Buff tailed bumblebee queen feeding on dandelion flower. (Credit: Andrew Halstead)
Take part
Could you grow some plants at your school that will flower in June? Think about asking the people in your school community (for example parents, guardians or grandparents) if they might have some spare flowering plant seeds, which they could donate to the school.
Check the back of any donated seed packets to find out when the seeds need to be sown to flower in June. You can find more information about checking seed packets for information here and check out our seed sowing glossary too.
Have you heard about the RHS Big Seed Sow? To celebrate the start of the growing year, we're inviting school gardeners of all abilities to come together to sow and share seeds as part of a week of activity taking place from Monday 27 March – Sunday 2 April. There’s still time to sign up and get all the advice and guidance you need delivered straight to your inbox, along with inspiring stories and expert top tips.
Image: Cosmos flowers (Credit: RHS/Joanna Kossak)
St George's Primary School Bee Garden
The June pollen gap shouldn’t be a problem for pollinators visiting St George’s Primary School in Camberwell, home of the BBC Studios Our Green Planet and RHS Bee Garden. When the garden was planted in January, there were plenty of the plants out in that will be flowering in June, ready for hungry bees to feed on and to collect pollen to feed their young.
Some June flowering plants that can be found in the Bee Garden at St George’s include nepeta, geum, geranium and oregano.
Image: Oregano plant flowering (Credit: RHS/ Graham Titchmarsh)
Glossary
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Nectar
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Sweet liquid mainly produced in flowers.
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Pollen
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Dust-like powder produced by flowers and carried by wind or pollinators to other flowers of the same type, so they can make seeds and grow new plants. |
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Pollinators |
Animals that move pollen from one flower or plant to another e.g. bees. |
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Sowing |
Placing a seed in soil or compost. |
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Sown |
When a seed has been placed in soil or compost. |
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Unmown |
Grass which is not cut. |
Find out more about bees
If you are just buzzing to find out more about bees, check out our monthly updates:
Learn more about pollinators:
September update
Find out more about pollen:
October update
What happens to bees in the colder months?
November update
How many types of bees are there in the UK?
December update
Discover how bees help put the food on your plate:
January update
Explore the lifecycle of a bumblee:
February update