Home Beekeeping Making a Beeline for the Sun

Making a Beeline for the Sun

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Making a Beeline for the Sun

feeding the beesBees abuzz, enjoying the day’s first rays of sun. Look closely, see the bees in flight?

The Pacific Ocean has been pitching storms to the West Coast like a rookie on a roll. As a self professed non-whiner of Washington State weather, even I have had to bite my tongue and hold on to the belief that the sun will reappear on Puget Sound sometime before the Fourth of July. (Above: look closely to see the bees in flight.)

closeup of honeybeesToday we’re have a weather teaser, a clear sky of bright sun that erases any recollection of rainy days. The bees are also out and not wasting a minute to forage for nectar divine. I do augment their diet with sugar water, as the pickings are slim this time of year. Bee does not live by snowdrops alone (flower below).

bees on galanthusThe day is wasting and the outdoor chore list is awaiting my pencil’s first check mark. Let the day bee-gin; go outside, make a beeline for nature!

12 COMMENTS

  1. Karen, that upside down jar is a super low-tech bee feeder. It contains sugar water, and has a dozen or so pin holes in the bottom lid. The sugar water beads below the holes and the bees lap it up, accessing it from within the hive.

  2. I never had heard from this before, thanks for explaining it to us all!

    That is so good of you feeding them extra! Excelent clear pictures of the bees flying too,..How cool is that?

  3. Just to be sure I understand… your bee-utiful feeder is on a hive? It looks like an upside down jar on a metal wrapped block of wood on a picnic table. What am I missing?

  4. Hi Karen, it is an oddly simple system. It is just an upside jar with pinholes in the lid and filled with sugar water.

    The jar rests in a hole on a wood block covered by a metal plate. The entrance is hive side and you slide it in about two inches. The bees crawl into the “cave” and see droplets of sugar water for the taking.

    It’s called a Boardman Entrance Feeder: http://robo.bushkillfarms.com/beekeeping/feeder-compare/
    You just add the filled jar.

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