Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Feeding wild bees during Winter - how to do it?

permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: permaculture

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Kelly Simmons <kelly@bouldersustainability.org>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Feeding wild bees during Winter - how to do it?
  • Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2010 18:04:51 -0600

There is no need to feed bees in the winter. For the most part, they are in a semi-dormant cluster, are unable to fly anyway, and so would be unable to partake of your gift. Bees cannot fly in temperatures below 50 degrees fahrenheit. Unless your spring and summer have been unusually absent of flowering trees and other plants, the bees will have put up more than enough food for the winter. Wild bees have few needs that humans can supply! How refreshing!

Bees are opportunists and if a food source is nearby and discovered before their winter dormancy, then they will definitely take advantage of the resource - hence the attraction of hundreds of bees to your compost pile.

If you are wanting to assist them, the best ways to do so are to protect the tree or cavity that they are nesting in, plant maple, linden and other flowering trees in their vicinity, locate a water source near their nest for spring, summer and fall that is set up to prevent them from drowning, and plant a variety of flowering medicinal plants such as catnip, mints, thymes and such so that they can self- medicate as they need to, and most especially lobby your neighbors NOT use pesticides and herbicides on their properties.

Hope this helps!

Kelly
Boulder, CO




On Oct 5, 2010, at 9:28 PM, Lawrence F. London, Jr. wrote:


Feeding wild bees during Winter - how to do it?

I discovered that I have on my 6 acre property more wild bees than I thought (maybe they are those who swarmed from my hives and left for
new homes as forest dwellers). I poured out two quarts of honey that had ants in them onto a compost pile on a garden bed. Soon there were hundreds of bees foraging for the honey. I have done this many times but this is the first time I have seen any bees attracted to the honey.

Is it possible to feed wild forest-dwelling bees during the Winter? I am in central NC USDA zone 6/7.

LL
_______________________________________________
permaculture mailing list
permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Subscribe, unsubscribe, change your user configuration here:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
Read the public message archives here:
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/permaculture
Command to put in your browser's Google search box to search these archives:
site:lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/permaculture [search string (omit the brackets)]
List Usage & Guidelines:
http://ibiblio.org/permaculture/documents/permaculturelistguide.faq
Permaculture http://www.ibiblio.org/permaculture
permaculture forums http://www.permies.com/permaculture-forums
List contact: permacultureforum@gmail.com





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page