What Salvias are you looking at?
Many of my Salvias and Butterfly Bushes (Buddleia spp.)
have always attracted bees, butterflies and hummingbirds
being they are after the same thing ..nectar.
Maybe someone closer to you than I am can answer your
question on bees.
Art

Thank you Art. I have a larger butterfly bush in my backyard and that doesn't seem to attract any bees. Maybe I should just go with the dwarf butterfly bush in the front. I know it will grow fine with the sandy, well drained soil.
Al

Do you mean both honey bees and bumblebees? How about wasps and hornets? The latter two are no problem with Salvias. If your wife has a tolerance of one kind of bee, small blue flowers attract honey bees, and bumblebees prefer larger flowers, but will work the smaller ones as well.

Use compost and coffee grounds to build up humus in your sandy soil. This will help with heat stress during the summer. Hardwood bark mulch does a great job holding in moisture, and breaks down into just the right kind of humus for Salvias.

Bumblebees may not be able to feed from many kinds of salvia but that doesn't mean they don't spend all summer trying. Some of the cultivars of Salvia greggii might do OK as long they occasionally get a light feeding. We are talking about dune sand, correct? Here in southern NJ greggii cultivar Wild Thing has been particularly durable. Other Texas varieties like White would do equally as well.