How do you attract bees?

My garden is doing well but I seem to not have any bees because i am having to hand pollinate my squash or it shrivels up and dies. Any suggestions on how to attract bees?

You can attract bees by a) not using pesticides and by b) planting some herbs!
I have a vegetable garden right beside my regular cottage garden which is filled with flowers and herbs. The bees LOVE herbs such as vitex, which will grow into a tree here, and hyssops which can be so beautiful (some can over-re-seed), lavenders, and oreganos. The ornamental oreganoes are pollinator magnets!!

In my squash beds I have put little upside down tomato cage "obolisks" and I grow Japanese Morning Glories on these. This type of MG doesn't over-re-seed here, and it attracts bees in the AM, night pollinators at night! Good luck!

GGG

My yard is wall-to-wall carpeted with honeybees. Love them, but it makes walking a little dicey. Sigh... clover.

I use bee balm, lavender, and various salvia. They are always visiting these plants in particular, out of all the ones that I have. Then they make little forays into my squash and 'maters.

Bees LOVE my catmint (any variety).

Jfredt, I am having the exact same problem, but it's even worse, because I don't know how to pollinate by hand here. I have a front bed filled with Salvia and the bees won't leave there. Maybe I should stick some in with my squash...

here's a link on hand pollination
http://pollinator.com/hand_pollination.htm

Thanks for the replies. I was going to tell you how to hand pollinate but there is a good link in the thread. I will try the bee balm and salvia. Are either one of these invasive?
Can they be grown close to the vege's? I hope this works because hand pollinating gets old real quick.

The bee balm could be more invasive than the salvia. It throws up new shoots but I just pull them out if they come up where I don't want it. That said, I'm in zone 5a, so maybe it's less invasive for me than it would be for you. I don't think salvia is invasive at all. It certainly isn't here. But it makes nice uniform clumps that are easily divided.

The major problem with bees is the lack therof. An imported mite wiped out most of the feral population and there are not many beekeepers left, especially around the larger cities. You cannot attract what does not exist. Native squash bees, bumble bees, and carpenter bees carry the load here. Those can be encouraged with nesting sites. Of course those who grow squash for a living rent hives from beekeeepers.

I concurr with Farmerdill. With the feral bee population so low, and the increase of "farming" bees up and down the coast (east), it's a wonder any thing grows! We just dont see honeybees very often in our N.VA area. :(

I am seeing honeybees on my clover in the yard. Also they love all those shirley poppies I have [deep reds..sngle and double]. Also batchlor buttons....and today one was on my watermelons!

Soon the Linden trees will bloom which is a bee heaven.

I grow borage and the bees love it. It reseeds most generously, so I leave a few, transplant a few and pull the rest up for the compost pile. I read somewhere that planting borage with my beans will attract the bees to pollinate so I plopped some in the middle of my bean hills. It's a fairly fast growing annual with tiny, knock-out blue, edible flowers. Great plant!