I sure have been learning a lot about bee plants from taking trips to the nursury in the past week. Last week and this week I went to the nursury and chased the bees around from flower to flower to see what they were going for. The two best flowers I found were both perrenials, and of course I picked up a few... the best by far was Sunny Border Blue Veronica... and the second best last week was Arizona Sun Gillardia, and this week was something else (don't have the tag at the moment and can't remember it's name... will add it here once I put it in the ground and pull the tag). Edit: it's Digitalis Camelot Cream, a type of foxglove.
I was surprised that a lot of the flowers I expected to have bees visiting them (like the morning glory), had none. Also, all of the busiest flowers were the perennials instead of the annuals. That's VERY surprising to me, because I would think annuals which need pollination in order to survive to the next year would give more nectar to attract more bees.
Anyway, with all the new flowers in the yard, I have seen increased bee activity... nearly every day now I can count 2 honey bees working the lawn clover near the tomatos, and at least 1 or 2 bumble bees working the Veronica now, as well as some smaller bees (I think they are sweat bees) working some of the other flowers I got. Today I set a new record of 4 honey bees working the patch of clover, and one bumble-bee (I didn't really pay attention in years past, but I think 4 honey bees would have been the minimum there).