Question: To “bee”, or not to “bee”? Answer: NOT to “bee” (and how I learned that lesson!) By Amy Shockley

What is a honeybee doing here in my birdbath??!!, I asked myself in shocked disbelief one January morning. A short spell of “warmish” winter weather had thawed the garden hose just enough to enable me to refill the birds’ dish. As I watched, many more bees gathered around the rim, their little tongues causing the water to shimmer as they drank. Tears welled up in my eyes as I beheld that scene and wondered where they had come from.

It didn’t take long to discover a whole bunch of bees flying around outside a squirrel’s former nesting box fastened to the tree right over my head. “WOW! These bees are living in my squirrel box, maybe I can help them!”, I thought, and hurried inside to phone the Delaware Department of Agriculture. I had a hundred questions for the bee expert and his assistant, who soon arrived to take a look at the situation, their interest being very keen due to the frightening decline in our bee populations.

First, I learned that the bees do not relieve themselves inside their hives. Rather, they “hold it in” until a sunny winter day like this, when they come outside to “go”. They were doing so when they spotted the clean, fresh water in the dish just below them.

I learned that this was a wild bee colony which had settled here because all their needs could be met easily close by. For example, they had been using pine pitch from my trees to make propolis, a sanitizing glue substance for the hive’s interior.

Another need was met as these bees gathered nectar and pollen in my organic flower and herb gardens. Still another requirement, for a ready supply of fresh water, was met through well-watered birdbaths. And here, too, was the empty squirrel nesting box, as safe a shelter for their hive as a sturdy hollow tree.

But there are nectar “dry spells” in the garden, as flowering plants are active only part of the time. I wanted to supplement the natural nectar, so, the bee expert gave me the recipe for a very concentrated sugar water suitable for bees. That spring I hung two red plastic, flying saucer shaped, hummingbird feeders, with the bee guards removed, filled with my homemade nectar. I waited and watched for a couple of weeks, but saw no bees at the feeders. The bee expert had explained that yellow attracts bees, so I thought perhaps the red feeders were keeping the bees away. Disappointed, I took the feeders down.

Opening them to clean, I beheld a gruesome sight; each feeder was packed with the bodies of dead bees! In horror I realized that the bees had crushed each other during a feeding frenzy, to get to the nectar. The feeding ports were big enough without the bee guards for first-come bees to be forced inside by later arriving bees. In agony I knew I had done more harm than good.

Trying different types of feeders resulted in the same tragic outcome. I even tried pouring nectar over pebbles in a baking pan so the bees couldn’t get trapped, but first-come bees were drowned under later arriving ones. Also, huge, inch long red ants, something I’ve never seen before, or since, attacked and killed the bees as they fed among the pebbles, and carried the bodies off. Drowned bees fouled the pan of pebbles and nectar, especially in hot weather, and it was a pain to have to empty and scrub daily, not to mention rain protection that would not blow away during summer thunderstorms.

Give up? Not me! (foolish decision, as you will see...)

The last effort to design the “perfect” bee feeder was successful. I cut off the four big red plastic flower shaped feeding ports from an “hour-glass shaped hummingbird feeder, making sure to cut everything off flush, right up to the body of the feeder.

Then I wrapped bright yellow duct tape around the area of the nectar holes to cover them tightly, to keep bees out. With a single-edged razor blade I then cut a little slit in the tape over each hole, just big enough for the bees to stick their tongues in there, but not anywhere near big enough for a bee to get their head or body stuck in.

Worked like a charm! No drowned bees, no ants (I used an “ant guard” device, just to make sure), no fouled nectar, and the bees loved it! Oh, but wait! Another challenge appeared when the hot sun caused the internal air to expand and force nectar out of the feeder. But by cutting a center hole in a yellow plastic picnic plate, threading the feeder hanging string through the hole in the plate and then re-hanging it, the plate served as a “shade umbrella”.

The system worked too well! As more and more bees came, I made and hung more feeders, ten in all! Worse yet, was that all ten were completely empty and had to be refilled every hour or so during daylight! I was forced to make gallons of nectar every day; and my friends felt sorry for me and started donating huge sacks of sugar to help. You would have laughed as I bravely reached through hundreds of frantic bees to unhook each feeder, then make a run for it behind a building without any bees finding out where I was, so I could refill it in peace with a funnel and a huge tea kettle of nectar, then dash back through all the bees to rehang the thing! Times ten! Every hour or so!

These bees were surprisingly gentle though, I must say, and I never got stung even as they got all over me and in my hair! In fact, those little cuties licked me, and it tickled! You haven’t lived until you’ve mustarded enough self-control to tolerate being tickled by bee tongues and their scratchy feet without brushing or blowing them off, which would likely result in them stinging you. I later learned that when a honeybee stings you they lose the part of their body with the stinger and they die. In doing so, they release a chemical that angers near-by bees and incites them to attack and sting en masse. Yikes!  

I kid you not… all that summer “my” bees figured out where I live! They had a sentinel bee (or bees) watching for me coming out my back door with the kettle of nectar, on my way to refill the feeders, and they would land on me for a ride! They never bothered anyone else; I wonder how they recognized me?

This nightmare continued all summer. The hive outgrew the nesting box and onto the tree, and soon the entire tree trunk was completely covered with honeycomb and thousands of bees!

But one day all the bees had disappeared!! I’ll never know why, for sure, but the bee expert thought that they had formed a huge swarm and simply left for a new location. What a relief! My self-imposed nightmare was finally over, and I learned my lesson well: Don’t feed bees artificially! In doing what I did, I inadvertently lured every bee for miles to come live here for easy food!

                                         The best ways to help the bees:

1. Plant your garden with nectar-producing flowers that bloom over the entire season.             

2. Keep and maintain a birdbath.                                                                        

3. Have a pine tree if you can.

4. Avoid pesticides and herbicides.

   
   

5. Support the bees while they do their work, don’t do their work for them.

Some months went by. The next winter was unusually mild, hardly dipping below freezing. One sunny January day about 30 honeybees were clustered on my house by the back door. As I stepped outside, several of them flew to me and landed on my arms and head! They must have been from “my” group, I realized! Of course I had no nectar, but I did offer them a dinner plate spread with sopping wet table sugar. They ate with great gusto. After a couple of days, they disappeared for good.

I later donated the bee feeders I’d invented to an organization of bee-keepers. One of the group, Mr. Errera, made only one suggestion, and that was to puncture the yellow duct tape with a pin at the feeding ports instead of the razor slits. But he was impressed with the feeder and sun umbrella.

                                                                                                                                                              Amy Shockley