Look at what was eating my Chicken Feed

[LauraSBale]

the thing is he live some where else, not sure where, i told the Neighbor about, he knows how to get a hold the man.
we have lived here for 5 years now, and i have never seen any one over there to take care of them, or just not seen him when his there.

the funny thing is i buy honey from a Organic Apple orchard, but never got any from this guy

the best honey i ever got was when my mom brought me some back from Florida, its was Orange Blossom Honey

 

[bibliophile birds]

maybe you could buy his hives off him and work them yourself!

it's a lot of fun, especially when all the start up work is done for you. the biggest hassle/expense is processing honey. you either need to find someone who has equipment and will do it for you (usually for a fee or a portion of the honey) or you need to buy/make the stuff yourself. we've always used a local processing guy, but this winter we're setting up our own equipment. self sufficiency, here we come!

 

[wildorchid053]

i have acres of clover.. it helps with the erosion on our hill.. and there are tons of honey bees.. i am glad to see them.. not too many around these days.. maybe i should build a couple of places for them to have their hives in.. they have to compete with the hens.. they just love that purple clover lol. they won't eat the white so the bees can have that stuff lol

 

[hilandfrog]

Not sure if this has anything to do w/ the bees dying.

Corn Meal is a Great way to kill red ants, then eat and eat and eat, get full yet are not nourished.

Their little bodies are unable to digest the Corn Meal,

Now I don't just drive around killing nests but sometimes they gotta go.

Perhaps the bees are unable to digest whatever has attracted them to the feed

Repo

 

[LauraSBale]

Quote:
that could be

we have lots of purple clover by us to, my duck love it, between the duck and bumble and honey bees the clover doesn't have a chance

~~~bibliophile birds good luck with your hives,

 

[Christie Rhae]

I am new to chickens. We are putting the finishing touches on our deluxe chicken condo. We have 6 hens about 3 months old I think. We are just inundated with honey bees. They are beginning to be annoying. We have little kids and so far the kids are not freaked out by the bees but I am afraid with this many bees we may have a "misunderstanding" with a bee one of these days. The bees are just rolling around in the chicken food. The chickens avoid the bees as much as possible. Wish I could lure the bees away from our chicken coop. Any ideas?

 

[joebryant]

Quote:
Those bees are desperate for POLLEN because you've evidently had weather that's stopping them from gathering pollen for their brood back at the hive. They are not eating your feed; they're merely putting it on their back legs to carry home during their emergency. They will not harm you. A pollen substitute mixture to put elsewhere that's better than chick feed is soy flour, yeast, and powdered milk.

 

[Christie Rhae]

Thank you, I will mix up a batch of that and set it out. I live in Hawaii and it is middle of summer, you would think the bees would have plenty of pollen sources. Who knows.
I told my husband that someone is gonna be eating honey one day and say "hey this tastes like chicken!". Lol
thanks again!

 

[bibliophile birds]

Quote:
first, make sure they are honey bees. a lot of people confuse other types of bees with honey bees, which are quite small (not saying YOU don't know the difference, but i thought i'd put that out there).

honey bees are really harmless unless provoked. remember, a bee that stings you is a dead bee, so they really don't want to sting you. honey bees usually only sting to protect the hive. most times when people get stung, it's an accident: you step on them or trap them under your arm. make sure to tell your kids that they shouldn't swat at honey bees. if the bee comes close it is most likely just checking them out and will go on it's merry way very shortly. swating MIGHT actually provoke them enough to sting.

i've got 2 hives in my yard and 12 next to my garden. i go out barefoot all the time and have yet to step on a bee. the only times i get stung is when i'm working the hives and don't pay attention to what i'm doing. it's always because i trapped a bee under my arm or didn't make sure they were all off me before sitting down in the car.

 

[Christie Rhae]

Yes they are honey bees. They really don't bother us except...there were seriously 80 or more of them in the chick feeder today. The birds could not get to their food at all. The bees are just swarming all around rolling and rolling in the feed. I set a tray of the chick feed out of the feeder thinking it would lure them away. But then we just had more. My kids don't seem to be scared of the bees at all but with that many around... a bee is gonna get mad at somebody someday.

After visiting 3 stores today and finally finding what I needed at a health food store I have the soy flour, powdered milk, yeast to make some "bee bait". I set some out this early evening and did have one "customer". Hopefully that that bee will go back to the hive and tell it's buddies about this new food source.