Bee, Oklahoma, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Expect cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Bee, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single Bee lot. Enter your address and we'll score 1,086 plants against your land's actual soil, sun, and frost.
We read public map data around Bee — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Bee — the short answer
Bee, Oklahoma: USDA zone 8a, about 250 days between hard freezes, across 834 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~250
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 834 acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 28°F normals: light frosts run a few weeks past them, and tender transplants usually wait 2–3 weeks after the last hard freeze.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 8a is Bee's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bee's 250-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Bee
Each reading below is measured for Bee itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBee runs about 250 days between hard freezes — a long growing season.
There is slack for succession plantings and slow-finishing crops: many vegetables can be sown twice, and the heat-lovers have time to ripen fully.
Plan a second sowing of quick crops after the first comes out, and use the fall window most gardeners let sit idle.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredBee sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a.
The zone sets which perennials, shrubs, and fruit trees live through an average winter here — a plant rated for a colder zone is a safe bet, one rated warmer needs winter protection or gets treated as an annual.
Match perennials and fruit to the zone before you buy, so nothing you plant is a gamble against the cold.
USDA PHZM 2023
The kind of country Bee is in
Bee sits in the Cross Timbers — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Bee's own centroid rather than borrowed from Johnston County.
What Grows in Bee
Every plant below cleared Bee's own zone 8a and its 250-day season. Each card opens that plant's Oklahoma profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Bee?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 11; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 11 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 16 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
What's on the federal record near Bee
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Bee. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- B & F Grocery & Bait ShopUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- MADILL GAS PROCESSING LLC/MADILL PLTBrownfields · 3.0 mi
- Natural Gas Pipeline Co Of AmerUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- Tex's CornerUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
- Robertson County StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
- Cumberland Cove ResortUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.8 mi
- Tishomingo National Wildlife ReUnderground Storage Tanks · 6.3 mi
- Jerry Lawley, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 7.3 mi
- Newberry Marina CreekUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.5 mi
- Bridgeview ResortUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.6 mi
- At&T-C Spaulding (L441690)Underground Storage Tanks · 7.6 mi
- Tishomingo AirportUnderground Storage Tanks · 7.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bee's center, not your beds. Run your own address for what's upwind of you specifically.
Environmental Intelligence
The counts behind that headline — every source type on the record near Bee.
Total Sites
58
within ~10 miles of Bee
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Bee
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Bee
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Bee, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 54 sites within ~10 miles of Bee. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Bee
Get exact proximity distances to contamination sources for your specific parcel — plus soil, sun, drainage, and 1,086 plant recommendations.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bee average
Your land is one point inside Bee
Everything above resolves to Bee as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 834 acres. Your parcel is one point inside that footprint. Slope, tree cover, a low spot that pools cold air, and what is in the soil are all resolved at the address, and none of them are visible at town scale. That is the honest boundary of this page, and the reason the next step is a reading of your own ground rather than a better local average.
Your Lot vs the Bee Average
Bee Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Bee
- ●One soil character for all of Bee
- ●Frost dates read at Bee's scale: Mar 11 to Nov 16
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bee's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Bee
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bee, Oklahoma — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bee averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bee — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bee average
How we know this about Bee
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Bee’s own record; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about Bee
When does frost risk typically end in Bee?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bee typically lands around Mar 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — earlier than the light-frost dates most charts quote. That marks the hard freeze, not the last light frost — lighter frosts keep biting past it, which is why tender transplants here wait until about Apr 1.
When is the first frost in Bee?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Bee typically arrives around Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 2, so the watching starts about Oct 17 — about 250 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Bee?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bee sees about 250 frost-free days — roughly Mar 11 through Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 1 to Nov 2, about 215 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bee?
The federal record around Bee is a meaningful one — 58 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (54), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Bee?
From about Oct 17 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Nov 16 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Nov 16. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Bee's scale — its 8a band and its 250-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bee's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at Bee’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Bee's own scale — its own ~250-day season between 28°F freezes, the 834 acres it covers and 58 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bee's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bee's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 11 and Nov 16 and the ~250-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 58 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Bee, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Bee's boundary and the 834 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~250-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Bee's own centroid, the Cross TimbersUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Bee's 834 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Johnston County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Johnston County
- The growing challenges every Oklahoma grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Oklahoma
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Johnston County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Bee's 834 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Bee you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 834 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any Bee-wide figureread your own land →
More in Oklahoma
Wider growing context
What grows across OklahomaBee sits outside our named growing regions, so Oklahoma as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides