What to plant in a shady garden

I have quite a large, but mostly shaded garden. Shaded by Oak, beech, cherry and holly mostly. So I guess the soil is slightly acidic, but over sand/gravel as well. I would like to grow more nectar-providing plants or shrubs in the shade for the bees and butterflies. Any suggestions anyone?
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I suppose it depends how shady it is. I have a border that only gets sun from the east and the most useful plants for pollinators (that do well there) are hellebore, pulmonaria, honesty, geranium phaeum, aconitum and actaea in approx order of flowering.
I'm not really a shrub grower so can't advise on them, but I'm sure others will have more advice.
I'm guessing it's going to be quite dry, judging by your description, but hardy geraniums will cope with anything.
I have lots of damp shade, and can offer ideas for shrubs and perennials if you have damp areas. There are ferns which will suit dry or damp, and many ground cover plants will cope with both, like Ajuga and Vinca.
We like ours to stay as natural as possible.
I grow epimediums which do give early flowers and some nice leaf shapes and some are wintergreen too with nice colour. Though mostly only spring flowering . I recently got Amber Queen which is supposed to flower later in the year too.
Also Heuchera, a wide variety do well in shade and bees love those flowers. Our "Chocolate ruffles" is in quite a lot of shade for most of the day yet still has delicate spires of little white flowers.
Also look at Heucherella and Tiarella.
There is a site called heucheraholics , someone linked to the other day which has some good pictures and information and of course you can buy them too, other sites are available
Climbing hydrangea likes a shady spot I think if you need something like that.