Seeds for Bees 2021: Frequently Asked Questions

All seeds will be posted at the end of March, so should arrive arrive by mid-April. They’ll need to be planted outside before the end of April.

As there are limited numbers of seed packets available, for now we’re limiting it to one pack per person. If this changes the office team will let people know there’s a chance to sign up for any spare packets.

Unfortunately, at the moment there aren’t enough packets for us to be able to send out multiple packs for community groups or projects.

Yes, the seeds are free because we want everyone to be able to take part in planting bee-friendly flowers. However, if you’re able to do so, it would be great if you could chip in to help pay for seeds for people who can’t afford to. Each packet of seeds costs us £3 to buy and post and you can make a secure donation here.

If your seeds haven’t arrived by Thursday 15th April please send an email to the 38 Degrees office team at emailtheteam@38degrees.org.uk.

The seeds are supplied by Higgledy Garden and are a mix of completely organic bee-friendly flowers, suitable for planting all over the UK.

As they are individually mixed, there will be a combination of seeds including phacelia, borage, nigella, eschscholzia, larkspur, cornflower, chrysanthemum, calendula, cosmos and sunflower. This mix has oranges, blues and ivory colours.

Phacelia and borage are the big guns with regard to proving a great and quickly-restored food source for the bees. Once the bees have found a patch of these wonderful flowers they keep coming back all summer long. Nigella (aka “love in the mist”) and eschscholzia (aka “California poppy”) have the advantage of being quick to flower and add wonderful colours to your flower patch.

If the winter isn’t too wet and cold all these flowers will self seed and come back to visit you early the following summer.

It’s really simple to plant your seeds! Check out the 38 Degrees Hive for written instructions, or check out this video:

The office team will also be in touch when the seeds are due to arrive, to share a reminder of how to plant them.

The UK is home to more than 270 different species of bees, including bumblebees, honeybees and solitary bees – and all of them love the flowers that grow from our bee-friendly seeds! If you want to learn how to identify the bees that you see buzzing around your flowers, why not check out this blog post about how to identify the most common UK bumblebee species.