This weeks observation/experiment

[Daisy]

My experiment this week.

Three evenings this past week I fed the bees on my porch (my nectar) after 4 pm till about sundown. (I wait till I think the girls are finishing up their field work). It's 90s average and a hundred degrees....this week.

Two evenings they were fed with red clover blossom tea mixed in a weak solution of sugar, approximately one third or slightly less sugar to water. (Tonight is was as about as sweet as a glass of iced tea as we make it here in the mid west, not that much)

It's been very hot on each night. I sat close to the solution and observed the bees each evening. The first evening I fed from the upside down jars, the herbal tea mix. The second night I herbal tea with the jars and on a plate lined with tree bark.

Tonight I fed them a weak solution of sugar water (no clover blossoms water) in a dish with tree bark, and another dish lined with rocks.

Tonight something different happened.

The other nights, the bees were enjoying their clover blossom tea and never paid me any attention. I got as close as I wanted and never once did they land on me. But tonight,

The bees began to lite on me and lick my skin.
(I don't know the name of their tongue) I had to close up my shirt openings so they wouldn't fly in and get trapped and sting me. I didn't shoo them get off of me. I let them land on me and I observed them getting salt from between my fingers, on my watch band and on my legs. It's hot and I'm sweatie. ( I hope I'm not grossing anyone out.)

At anyone time there'd be three to six bees licking my skin.

The two nights I fed them clover blossom tea, they didn't come near me, but tonight with just the weak sugar water, they did.

I'm going to continue my experiment, duplicating what happened this week, again next week to see if the results are the same. Maybe they do need clover blossom tea for the trace minerals it has in it. I'll be experimenting with some vitamin B as well. I know it's the vitamin in brewers yeast that give them nutrition. I may do some very small amount of B to see if this strengthens my one weak hive a bit more.

Which btw, after giving them a little tlc this past few weeks, they are doing a lot better. I'm not as worried as I was before.

I'll let you's know what happens this week coming week regarding the teas, and minerals that I suspect the bees may be lacking.

[Michael Bush]

They don't seem to do it often, at least not nearly as often as flies, but bees do seem to want some salty sweat sometimes. One thing the clover blossoms will do is give the sugar water some smell. Any smell at all will help attract the bees. There are several reasons for this. First, the bees use smell to find nectar sources so if something has a odor they check it out to see if it's good to eat. Second, the bee that gets the syrup and takes it back has to recruit the others to go to this source and how to find it and part of that is the smell of the nectar she brings back. So any smell at all improves the attractivness of the syrup. Pepermint, wintergreen, lemongrass and anise all are very atrractive to the bees. Most anything would work to make it more attractive.

[beegee]

Come evening, my bees tend to go back to the hive. I don't recall ever seeing any bees around my porch light. Wouldn't it be better to feed them during the day?

[abeille]

Â*Â*>The bees began to lite on me and lick my skin.
(I don't know the name of their tongue)

REPLY: The tongue is called PROBOSCIS.

Hugo

[Michael Bush]

Actually the tongue is one part of the proboscis.
http://www.main.org/cahbs/anatomy.htm

quote:

A proboscis is formed by bringing together several lower mouth parts. The two maxillae and the median labium ( a movable flap) form the proboscis which is the tube used for feeding on nectar. When the proboscis is not in use, it is folded up under the head.

A bee's tongue is covered by rings of cartilage bearing hairs and separated by smooth membranous intervals. The tip of the tongue is a small spoon shaped lobe or flabellum that is smooth on the underside, but covered with branched spines along the edges and top. Muscles associated with the tongue allow the bee to "lap" at fluids. A sucking pump also assists in feeding. The pump is a large muscled sac in the head. Dilator muscles suck liquid up the proboscis in a way similar to the way a turkey baster bulb works.

[denise_ky]

beegee,
I think daisy is feeding them in the evening to prevent a robbing frenzy from getting started and to discourage any wild bees from finding the "nectar" source.
Denise

[Daisy]

Yes Denise

This is why I feed after 4 pm. Conditions are very dry and hot.

I have to comment regarding bees scent. Yes they are attracted by scent like we are. I also have to wonder if they are attracted to things that their bodies need. And I wonder if they need minerals in their sugar water. If they are healthy, they have more defenses against weakness and disease.

If we have to boil water for sugar water anyway, why not consider giving them some herbs with it?

Honeybees can't make use of the red clover, because their tongues? aren't long enough. It can be picked in the spring, dried and given back to the bees in their sugar water.

This is where I got mine. But you can also order a pound of clover blossoms from mail order herbal companies. Reasonably priced.

[Michael Bush]

The fact is that sometimes what we think is helpful is the opposite. Sometimes it's not. I wouldn't go to the trouble of boiling herbs for the bees when I have no idea if it's going to have a positive or a negative effect.

I figure the complex elements of a bees diet are mostly in the pollen.

[beegee]

I guess we define evening differently in different parts of the country.

[oktec]

I would keep a close eye on them bee's, sounds like they are taste testing to me.

[clintonbemrose]

on our farm I have noticed the bees are visiting the mineral salt licks when it has been hot in the afternoon.
Clint

------------------
Clinton Bemrose
just South of Lansing Michigan

[Daisy]

There are traces of nutrition in the nectar of plants, albeit, slight. I thought the bees packed in pollen for the babies, and used honey for their food.

I'm still learning.

I put mixed olive oil in the sugar for the patties and they nibble on that while leaving the other crisco oil patties alone. Tonight the bees not only scarfed up the olive oil patties, they brought the paper it was on from the top, to the entrace and pitched it off their porch.

I'll let you's know how they do on the olive oil patties........

They don't like the strong tea I made. I placed three jars of sugar water on the table tonight. One was a strong clover tea, the other was a weak clover tea and the third was just sugar water.

They have nearly emptied the light colored weak solution of clover sugar water, and practically ignored the stronger solution and plain sugar water.

I'll be curious to see how they overwinter.

[Daisy]

Clint, I have salt on the table too. I sprinkled some on a dish lined with tree bark. They certainly do take salt.

[Daisy]

beegee, you feed bees sugar water at night or toward the evening to thwart off hogging, or whatever it's called.

Now since they don't fly at night, I give the sugar water late afternoon on the porch so I can observe the results of my experiments.

I'm encouraged with what I'm seeing so far. Like Micheal says, it may not be good what I'm doing.

And it may not, time will tell.

[denise_ky]

Daisy,
It's "robbing." Same thing though.