Do bees prefer native plants?

Two different questions hiding in one

The first question is about forage volume: will bees eat this? For generalists the answer is usually yes regardless of origin. Borage, phacelia, lavender and catmint are not British natives and are among the best nectar plants available in a British garden.

The second is about specialists: can this bee eat anything else? A substantial minority of bee species are oligolectic, collecting pollen from a single plant family or genus. For those, a non-native substitute is not a lesser option, it is not an option — and most of those specialisms attach to wild plants.

What the evidence supports

• Mixed plantings including well-chosen non-natives generally support more total pollinator activity than native-only plantings of the same size.
• Native and near-native plants support a wider range of specialist species, which is a different measure and arguably the more important one for conservation.
• Flower structure predicts value far better than provenance does — an open accessible non-native beats a deep-tubed native for a short-tongued bee every time.
• Double-flowered cultivars of any origin have had nectaries bred into petals and offer little or nothing.

The practical answer

Plant a mix, weight it towards natives in the wilder parts of the garden — hedge, meadow, hedge base — where the specialists actually forage and nest, and use the reliable non-natives where continuity of flowering matters most, which is usually the border. And check anything unfamiliar against your own region's invasive species list before planting it.