BuckfastLinda · Flanders, BE · Honey · Jun 25, 2026

What's everyone planting for late-season forage? Building my July-gap seed list

Flanders, 6 years in. Every summer the same story: linden finishes early July and then there's a hungry gap until the ivy in September, right when colonies are raising their fat winter bees. I've got maybe 800 m² of field margin plus the garden to play with and I'm ordering seed this week, so let's crowd-source it. My proven performers so far: phacelia (sown in succession every 3 weeks, flowers ~6-8 weeks after sowing, absolute bee magnet), borage (refills nectar fast and blooms until frost if you cut it back), and anise hyssop, which flowered for two solid months last year and the bees never left it alone. Thinking of adding a sweet clover strip but I hear it's biennial so year one is a write-off? What's carrying your bees through late summer, and what looked great in the catalogue but did nothing?

#forage#phacelia#borage#planting#dearth

▲ 17 votes 💬 4 replies

4 replies

IstriaBee · Jun 25, 2026

Istria: anise hyssop agreed, and I'd add mountain savory and late-sown buckwheat — buckwheat flowers about a month from sowing so you can literally aim it at your gap, though it only yields nectar in the morning. Sweet clover: yes, biennial, year one is just a green rosette. Sow some every year and from year two on you always have a flowering strip.

TopBarDavid · Jun 26, 2026

Different climate here in Enugu but same principle — I plant for the gap, not for the peak. For me that's sunflower strips and keeping moringa and calliandra trees around the apiary. The lesson that transfers: one long-blooming reliable thing beats five spectacular two-week things.

HokkaidoHachi · Jun 26, 2026

Hokkaido's big trick is buckwheat too, whole fields of it here in late July. In a garden setting I'd also say don't mow — my 'lazy' clover lawn strip outperforms half my deliberate plantings. And be honest about scale: 800 m² helps your bees a little and the bumblebees a lot. Worth doing, but keep expectations calibrated.

BuckfastLinda · Jun 27, 2026

Good calibration point HokkaidoHachi — I think of it as feeding the September brood nest, not filling supers. Order placed: more phacelia, buckwheat for a timed August bloom, savory to try, and a sweet clover strip starting its boring year one. Report next summer.

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