National Honey Bee Day, celebrated on the third Saturday of August, honors honey bees and the beekeepers who tend them. Bees pollinate a huge share of the fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds we eat, doing quiet, unpaid work that props up much of the food supply. The day is a chance to thank them in the most practical way there is: by making the world a little friendlier to bees.

Why bees deserve a holiday

A honey bee visiting a flower is running an essential errand. As she gathers nectar and pollen, she moves pollen between blooms and sets fruit that would never form otherwise. Native bees do much of this work too, often more efficiently than honey bees. Beyond food, bees pollinate the wild plants that feed countless other animals, so their reach goes well past our dinner plates. A world with fewer of them is a world with less food and far less color, which is reason enough to help.

Plant a bee buffet

The single best thing you can do for bees is grow flowers they can use. Choose single-petal, nectar-rich blooms over showy doubles, which often offer little food, and aim for something flowering from early spring through fall. Natives like coneflower, bee balm, goldenrod, and aster are magnets, and herbs left to flower, thyme, oregano, borage, are bee favorites too. Plant in generous clumps so foragers do not have to hunt.

Skip the sprays and add water

Pesticides and bees do not mix, and many common lawn and garden sprays are lethal to pollinators even at low doses. Go easy or go without, especially on anything in bloom. Bees also get thirsty: a shallow dish of water with pebbles or marbles for them to land on gives them a safe place to drink without drowning. These two small choices make an outsized difference.

Support the people who keep bees

Honey Bee Day is also about beekeepers. Buying local honey supports the folks maintaining hives in your area and connects you to the flavors of your own landscape, which shift with the season’s blooms. If you are curious, many local beekeeping clubs welcome visitors and host talks, and mason bee houses let you host gentle native pollinators without keeping a hive at all. Even a small pot of flowers on a city balcony gives passing bees a meal they would not otherwise find.

How to celebrate

  1. 1
    Plant a bee buffet

    Grow single-petal, nectar-rich flowers that bloom from spring through fall. Natives like coneflower, bee balm, goldenrod, and aster are magnets. Plant in generous clumps so foragers do not have to hunt.

  2. 2
    Skip the pesticides

    Many common lawn and garden sprays are lethal to bees, even at low doses. Go easy or go without, especially on anything in bloom. It is one of the highest-impact choices you can make.

  3. 3
    Set out a bee bath

    Bees get thirsty too. Fill a shallow dish with water and add pebbles or marbles for them to land on, so they can drink without drowning. Refresh it every few days.

  4. 4
    Buy local honey

    Support the beekeepers in your area and taste the flavors of your own landscape, which shift with the season's blooms. A jar of local honey is a small, delicious act of pollinator support.

  5. 5
    Host native bees

    You do not need a hive. A mason bee house invites gentle, solitary native pollinators to set up shop, and they are some of the hardest-working bees around.