It’s my turn to ask questions, and I have a few of them lined up. This first one just came from a reader in Texas (Mike) and I don’t have an answer for him.
Because Texas is having such a terrible drought, the wild bees are finding little to eat–a situation that doesn’t bode well for the overwintering young (generally, they each need a little pile of nectar and pollen) or the overwintering queens.
Mike put out hummingbird feeders and is attracting nothing but–you guessed it–hummingbirds. This is odd in a way because lots of beekeepers complain about honey bees frequenting hummingbird feeders and even storing pink “honey” in their combs. [Commercial hummingbird food is often colored red.]
Most bees are attracted to food sources by both sight and scent. Sight first, until they get close, and then scent. So if the hummingbird feeder is a color the bees don’t see, it probably wouldn’t attract bees as readily as one they can see. Also, different bees see slightly different parts of the spectrum. Honey bees, for example, don’t see red (it appears black to them) but they do see ultraviolet. I don’t know which colors other bees are sensitive to, although I often see bumble bees on red flowers. Whether the bumble bees found them by color or scent, I don’t know.
As with any other “open” food source a hummingbird feeder may attract predators (wasps) as well as bees, but apparently that is not a problem for Mike who is attracting nothing but hummingbirds.
My “feeding” of wild bees has been limited to planting flowering species they seem to like. I’ve never considered feeding them beyond that, but in such a severe drought, I can certainly understand the desire to lend them a hand. Does anyone have any experience feeding wild bees? Please send me your thoughts.
Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite.com
No experience, and open feeding is generally considered bad . . .
but taking some of the words of advise I got from a course I did, and using them in reverse;
We were told if we ever had problems with bees raiding our bird feeders, the trick was to lower the sugar concentration, and eventually you will get a mix that the birds are still interested in, but the bees aren’t interested in. So I guess the reverse is probably the same, if you want the bees to be interested, but they aren’t, maybe trying to increase the sugar concentration of your feed.
Also, generally syrup doesn’t have much of a scent, so we were told if we were trying to attract bees up to our top feeders, but they weren’t noticing them, to pour a little down into the hive. While you can’t do this, you can try to add a little scent to the mix, by maybe adding some wax or honey to it. Once again feeding honey to bees other than the ones which produced it isn’t recommended, but if that is your goal, maybe a little honey in the feed may help attract more bees.
Rusty, you’re approach of planting bee friendly plants is the better solution, but I guess that is kind of more long term.
If Mike is worried about the bees, maybe he could just run a few more boxes of bees in the area instead. Then they will be managed, and he can feed them as much as he likes the conventional ways. If he isn’t a beekeeper, maybe he’d be willing to host a couple of hives if he doesn’t want to do it himself.
Cheers
Max
Dunedin, New Zealand.
Thank you Rusty,
Hopefully, someone out there has had experience or at least some ideas about this.
Mike
I feed grape jelly to the Orioles. Wild bees took over the plate of jelly the beginning of September. Now they have taken over the hummingbird feeder.
Hi Rusty (and Mike),
I’m not sure if you’re talking about trying to feed feral honey bees, or wild native bees . . . ?
Considering that the main focus of your blog is honey bees, I’m guessing that’s what you’re talking about. But, just in case Mike is talking about wild native bees, I thought I’d chime in!
Planting native blooming species is the best way to keep native bees fed. Providing a water source in the form of a birdbath can also help, especially in dry summers. Honey bees collect water too, so a bird bath will benefit them as well. If you don’t have a birdbath, even a shallow pan of water will do the trick. But be sure to empty and refill every few days so you’re not growing mosquitoes!
Hope that’s helpful!
Just to make it really clear. Here in Central Texas we are in a severe drought. We have not had any rain since mid-June. We are rapidly approaching 90 days of 100+ degree weather. Some cities that use a reservoir are nearly out of drinking water. The area lakes are more than 30′ feet below seasonal average. Even large, established trees are dying. [U]Nothing[/U] is growing. Even the weeds are dying.
I mention this so that future responders will understand that planting flowers or starting a new hive are not options.
Okay, some useful ideas and info. Thanks to all. I have an idea. I’ll let you know how my experiment works out.
Mike,
Here are some things that came in via e-mail:
“How about trying bee candy instead…or an open feeder that only allows bees access….?”
“I have set out a small saucer of sugar water in periods of extreme drought just to keep anyone from starving. Shallow enough that no one drowns. A couple of days max and I fill it twice a day. I’m only working ten hives so this amount is hardly a substitute for natural food but it does seem to satisfy the appetite until nature resumes the cycle.”
SUCCESS! I put out several paper cupcake cups to fence posts with a small amount of really rich sugar water/honey mixture and attached some colored card stock to the posts and only a couple of hours the bees are at it. Of course the ants have discovered them as well, but the bees don’t seem to mind sharing.
Okay, Mike! Now that’s clever. Cupcake papers and colored cards . . . who woulda thunk it? I can’t wait to try this myself, just out of curiosity!
UPDATE: If you’re going to try this be sure and flatten the cups out so that the bees can sit at the edge and not get caught in the syrup.