Look at what was eating my Chicken Feed

[purpletree23]

Sad to say but I haven't seen a honey bee in over a year. When I did see a bee pollinating my garden this year it was always a bumble bee. I'm glad you have bees. Maybe provide a bowl of sugar water and they will leave the feed alone.

 

[stephys_fluffybutts]

OMG! AWWW they are adorable! but poor chickies!

I have seen wierder things take off with chicken feed. Once I saw a Daddy long leg (spider) with a piece of layer pellet. And he was actually eating it

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[LauraSBale]

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the Chickens are pretty good about keeping the feed in the feeder, that was me making the mess

, i was trying to get the bees away,
i normally have it hanging

well i put the fruit out and no bees today

 

[claud]

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That's what I was thinking was happening.
I don't mind honeybees at all but we had a terrible summer with yellow jackets this year.

 

[Akane]

You don't have to worry about honey bees moving in. They are much pickier than wasps about where they build a nest and require a fairly enclosed area. Potentially the walls of your coop if they are double layered but definitely not a feeder and usually not that high traffic of area as a coop. We did get some bees in the walls of our tack room once when it wasn't used much over the summer. They prefer a bee sized hole and there was a tiny gap to the door frame that let them into the walls. If they do plan to move in you won't see them flying about a food source like that. Instead you'll see a swarm of more tightly packed bees surrounding their queen on a large surface. These will go away soon and chickens don't seem sensitive to insect stings. They frequently eat bees and wasps.

 

[LauraSBale]

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No they wouldnt get them, they were just mad becasue of the bee's,

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

FWIW, you can only tell the difference in a native honey bee and an africanized one by microscopic inspection. I can't speak for other parts of the country, but here they are almost all africanized according to state experts. They will colonize just about anything, although they do prefer availability of water. Almost every year we have to get the exterminators out to get rid of a swarm in the roof vents, block wall and even in the middle of my iris bed. We had a huge swarm begin building a hive in the corner of our easy-up at a race a few years ago. Thankfully, they decided to move on the next day. If you swat at a few bees buzzing, you will probably end up hospitalized with several hundred stings. Nasty creatures!

 

[bibliophile birds]

i just started feeding my bees for the winter since the clover is almost completely gone now. my mixture is 2 parts sugar to 1 part water, which is just syrupy enough for their liking. rather than use a hummingbird feeder i would suggest something they have to climb into to get at the sugar water. that will help keep down the number of unwanted things hanging around your coop.

here's an example of the feeders i use on the hives (with a top). you could make something small like this to keep them out of your coop.

here is another type of feeder i've never used, but it looks like something you could make easily.

if you ever notice what looks to be the beginnings of a swarm or hive on your property, try to find local beekeepers that can come retrieve it for you. it's a fairly simple process once you know what you are doing and it will keep you free from bees in unwanted places (like the walls of your coop or barn). i collected 3 swarms this year from people around me (these were all in trees) and now i have 3 more hives for free! and the people who call about swarms always get free honey from me in the spring.

 

[LauraSBale]

atlargeintheworld - nice bee feeder

The man that owns the woods just down the road from us, he has 6 bee hive box's, we see them all the time in the summer, but they never bother any thing, just the clover all around us, they never went to the fruit i put out for them, so i will have to try the sugar syrup.


it looks like some of the bee's are dieing in and around the feed, which is weird

 

[bibliophile birds]

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they may be dying from lack of food, although that is rare this early in the winter (at least here in the South). some of the drone and workers do start to die off to lessen the number of bees that rely on their honey stores over winter, but you wouldn't usually see several dead at one time.

you might consider letting the beekeeper near you know that his bees were out searching for food. he may not have feeders in place, or they may have just gotten low without his noticing. you might mention that there were several dead ones around your feeders. it could be nothing, but it's better for him to have that information in case he does have a problem. colony collapse isn't happening as bad as it was in previous years, but it's good to be prepared for anything!

oh, and thanks for being so open to the bees! a lot of people just don't value them anymore, but they are sooo important to a healthy ecosystem.