In this article, you’ll discover 10 effective ways to attract bees to pollinate your cucumbers.
If your cucumbers are struggling to produce, perhaps they’re producing but not as much as you expected.
If you have done all you’re supposed to do and still your cucumber isn’t yielding as much as you want, then the problem may not be the land nor the species.
Lack of effective pollination could be the issue. How well your cucumber produce fruits is solely dependent on the manner of pollination it undergoes.
I’m here to show you an effective way of attracting bees to pollinate your cucumber, for maximum harvest.
You may have tried several ways to attract bees to pollinate your cucumber but it doesn’t just work out.
Relax, I want to show you results oriented methods. I’m showing you tested and trusted ways that I have used to attract bees to my cucumber garden.
How To Attract Bees To Pollinate Cucumbers – 9 Ways:
1. Provide Bees Shelter
Bees take pleasure in an environment where they’re safe and secure. Build a bee shelter in your garden to encourage them to stay in your garden.
Even though bees move in companies, it’s only one that will first locate your garden.
What will bring the other bees to your garden is the shelter.
Varieties of vegetables might invite bees into your garden but what will keep them for several days is shelter. Lack of shelter, bees will fly off after some hours.
But when you provide bees shelter in your garden, they’ll definitely take abode in your garden. Therefore, shelter is very important to keep bees to pollinate your cucumber.
Do you know that rotting vegetation and stumps are better shelter for bees? Yes they are! Bees feel secure in rotten vegetables and stumps.
Prepare the rotting vegetable and the stumps in a way that bees will derive pleasure and feel safe, to be able to spend days in your garden to pollinate your cucumber.
You can also install hives and other bees shelters to give them a great nesting spot.
Beehives are structures designed like a natural bees home. They’re specially customised to house bees. Beehive example is in the picture below.
Beehive is one of the most effective shelters to keep bees to pollinate cucumber in your garden.
Beehive is one of the most trusted ways I have used to attract bees into my garden. When you create it, position it in a strategic location in your garden.
Place it in a secluded place in your garden. Then, get a little honey and put a few drops of it.
The aroma from the honey you drop will attract bees into your hives.
Once they locate your hive at your garden, they will definitely pollinate your cucumber in no distant time when the time for pollination comes.
You can also build a small bee house and place it in your garden. Bee house will also make them thrive in your garden as well.
Bees sheltered anywhere that is pre-prepared for their accommodation. You can prepare bees house by follow these procedures:
The size of the bees house you want to build will determine the size of the wooden box you will use.
So, get a small wooden box and prepare the layer with nesting tubes. Position the box to stand upright.
Use organic color paint to make it attractive to bees. You can choose either purple, white, bright blue and yellow to paint the box. These colors are attractive to bees, also healthy to bees.
Put the tube material inside the box and let it fill to the top. As you fill the box, create holes that each bee can easily enter.
After this, turn the box upside down. Before you do this, ensure you secure the tube inside the box with tape to each end of the box.
Once you are done with it, place it close to an area that has clay and dirt. Bees will use these materials to build up their nest.
2. Grow Diverse Plants in Your Garden
Do you know that we have different active pollinators, at every season of the year?
All pollinators are not active at the same time, they all have their season of effectiveness.
Planting varieties of vegetables in your garden to attract bees is very important.
You need various plants that will keep bees busy all through the year in your garden.
Once there are plants at each season that keep them busy, then they will dwell in your garden to carry our active pollination.
Plant flowers that’ll bloom from spring to fall. Then, take advantages of plants of differing heights, sizes, and species to attract more bees into your garden.
The essence of these flowers are to attract bees, which will pollinate your cucumbers. Multiple perch of bees brings effective pollinations.
Growing varieties of plants in your garden, will aid better pollination.
When there are blossom flowers in your garden, bees will definitely spend days in search of nectar — the longer they stay, the more pollination takes place.
3. Use color Plants to Attract Bees to Your Garden
Naturally, bees are attractive to some colors, which includes:
- White
- Purple
- Yellow
- Blue
These are termed bees’ favorite colors. They hardly see this color without stopping by to check the area.
Plant flowers and vegetables that grow these colors to attract bees into your garden.
These types of color plants will increase the chance of bees visiting your garden multiple times, to pollinate your cucumber.
Sometimes, you may not necessarily grow flowers around your vegetables.
But you can use foot three that have these colors to attract bees into your garden.
Colors are the primary object of attraction to bees. Especially when they’re vibrant and shining colors.
This is another sure way to get bees into your garden — to carry out pollination of your cucumber for an abundant fruit beyoung what you expected.
Howerever, there are also colors that drive bees away from the garden. Colors like red, orange, etc. bees are scared of these colors, therefore don’t use this color in your garden.
4. Take an Advantage of Native Plants
Even though you want varieties of fruits from different species, it’s also important that you glow what will attract bees.
You may want to glow exotic plants in your garden, it’s not bad. But will that attract bees to your garden?
Bees are more attracted to flowers and plants that they’re familiar with.
However, carry out research around your locality to know plants and flowers that bees are familiar with.
Plant perennial native plants in your garden to attract bees. Some of the perennials include:
- Bee balm
- Poppies
- Butterfly weed
- Lilies
Bees love flowers and plants that are native to your area. Because these are what they’re familiar with.
5. Provide Bees Drink/Bath Water Source
Another aspect that I don’t joke with is drinking or bathing water for bees.
They don’t leave an environment that has drinking or bathing water sources.
They need water to perch on as they go on pollinating your cucumber and other vegetables in your garden.
Provide an island for them to land on, while they walk on the edges to drink or bath. Bees bathing or drinking water is different from birds. It shouldn’t be deep like birds but large surfaces.
To build bees drinking or bathing water, get a shallow dish and use rock to stand the dish.
The rocks are what they will first come to before accessing the water. In absence of rock you can also use bricks.
Pour water on the dish alongside with rocks. Before you pour water, ensure you position it in a strategic location. Close to the flower that’s most attractive to bees.
There is no doubt flowers will attract bees, but what will keep them for days is the drinking or bathing water you build.
Bees are not so friendly with a clean environment, but not water. Ensure the dish, and water are clean. It’s the clean water that will keep them.
6. Create Bees Habitation in Your Garden
Do you really want to attract bees into your garden? Then you have to leave part of your garden to be dirty.
Bees don’t like a neat environment. You may not make the entire garden dirt and unclean.
But choose a location close to the flower that the bees like most and build their habitation.
Get raw materials and rotten vegetables to set-up the habitation. These materials help the bees get what they will use for their nest.
Or you can also use a small brush pile, dry grasses, reeds and dead wood to prepare bees’ habitation. Mod environment is another bee’s favorite.
7. Plant Flowers With Single Petals
Bees like and prefer flowers with more pollen. They’re more attractive to such flowers. Reason is that they get more nectar from such flowers.
Some of these flowers with more pollen, are those with single petals. Bees find it easy to access pollen in single petal flowers.
These flowers provide more food for bees compared to other flowers. Because of all these bees are naturally attractive to single petal flowers
One row flower allows bees to get pollen easily than when there are multiple rows. Many petals are an obstacle to bees when trying to access pollen.
Therefore, plant flowers with single petals to attract bees into your garden.
Some of the single petal flowers, bees love that you can use to attract to them into your garden are:
- Marigolds
- Poppies
- Roses
- Snowdrops
- Sunflowers, Zinnias
- Foxglove
- Geraniums
- Hollyhocks
- Hyacinth
- Asters
- Calliopsis
- Clover
- Cosmos
- Crocuses
- Dahlias
Take advantage of these single petal flowers to attract bees to your garden.
People who want bees to be in their garden permanently, do grow these flowers, you can do so as well.
How effective bees are able to pollinate your cucumber, depends on how delighted they are with the flower in your garden.
So, encourage bees with the right flower to pollinate your cucumber for more production.
8. Grow Herbs in Your Garden
Most people don’t know that some herbs plants are important to bees, just as they are to human beings.
That’s why they neglect to glow these important plants in their garden.
There are many types of herbs that bees are particularly attracted to, some of the herbs are:
- Hyssop
- Basil
- Borage
- Thyme
The interesting thing among these herbs, is that they’re common and easy to get.
When it comes to attracting bees into your garden, you don’t select plants but go for the one that will attract bees.
Herbs aren’t just good for attracting bees in your garden but serve as a medicinal as well.
9. Avoid Spraying of Pesticides
I know you want to control pests like aphids, squash bugs and some other insects that destroy vegetables.
But do you think about the consequence it will cause to bees, when you spray it over your cucumber?
Pesticides aren’t just harsh on bees but kill them as well.
If you need bees in your garden to pollinate your cucumber, then you must avoid spraying of pesticides.
There are other natural ways or techniques to control pest outside pesticides.
You can either result in cross rotation, row covers, or nontoxic controls like hand-trapping, and hand-picking of insects.
Try as much as possible to have a garden free of pesticides and other chemicals spray that will either drive or kill bees.
You must protect pollinators agents, if you really want your cucumber to produce abundant fruits.
Bees don’t get close to an area where they spray pesticides. They run away from such an environment. So, do well to avoid the spray of pesticide in your garden.
Conclusion
To attract bees to your garden is most-important way to have your cucumber pollinated.
That’s why many are taking advantage of these effective methods shared here to attract bees to their garden.
Bees are not that common and at the same time not easy to attract. But when you know how to attract them, it becomes easy.
Now that you know the methods on how to invite bees into your garden to pollinate your cucumber, then go ahead to practice what you have read.
They might look too simple, but you will be surprised at the kind of harvest you will get, when you eventually apply these methods.
All the methods shared here are what I have used one time or the other to attract bees into my garden several years.