Honey bees stealing chicken food

[chickenphile]

Well spring is here I guess finally and I have a new problem. There seems to be a swarm of honey bees near my coop with a taste for layer crumbles. Now they are not harming the chickens or my self but will go into the coop and steal food from the feeder.

Should I be worried about them contaminating the feed?

Live and let live but I don't want me ladies getting sick or spend money feeding bees

Has anyone else have to deal with bees stealing food?


thanks
Chris

 

[Dar]

find out where the hive is...lol free honey for you

 

[Opa]

Are you sure that they are honey bees and not yellow jackets.

 

[SandraChick]

I'm with opa on this one..... I'm guessing yellow jackets...and in that case...I'd find the hive and dispose of them.

Sandra

 

[chickenphile]

No they are surely not yellow jackets. They are not aggressive and look just like honey bees. Will have to search around for the hive though. Should I be concerned about the health of my flock?

thanks
Chris

 

[Opa]

Any chance of posting a closeup picture of them?

 

[WoodlandWoman]

I've never heard of that happening before. I can't think of any health problems that would be associated with the bees, other than if a person with an allergy got stung.

It may resolve on it's own, once there are plants blooming. I'm sure they'd rather be consuming their natural food sources.

 

[klf73]

I had something last year that looked a LOT like honey bees, was told they were ground hornets.....and to kill them all.
They started out not bothering my chickens as long as they didn't try to eat

If you follow them and see where their nest is it would give you a better idea, if it's underground then they aren't bees.......

eta- they did start getting aggressive and attacked my son unprovoked, he was just outside

 

[yotetrapper]

For those doubting that they're honeybees.... we're bee keepers and have 2 hives in our yard....honeybees most certainly ARE attracted to layer food... I just dont have any idea why. When our bees first came out I had about 50 of them in the barrel of food in the shed, and then I had a bucket with crumbles of food in the bottom and had about 18 bees in that bucket. So yes,. honeybees do like chicken food. However, I dont think they are eating it... I think they think they are getting some source of pollen from it. I dont think they will hurt anything at all.

 

[Imp]

I don't know much about bees, but layer feed does smell sweet to me.

Imp