Date: 3/12/26 5:29 am From: Susan Campbell <susan...> Subject: Re: bees on Oriole Jelly feeder
Betsy and All,
I use lard in my suet “recipe.” It works very well. Do not generate much beef fat here.
I used to be able to get actual suet (beef fat found around kidneys)from pur local Winn Dixie meat counter. I never rendered it but cut it into small pieces and set it out during cold weather. However, that was years ago.
Susan Campbell
Apex, NC
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From: Betsy Kane <oldurbanist...>
Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2026 9:38:15 PM
To: Ann Brice <ann.brice...>
Cc: Susan Campbell <susan...>; Herbert, Teri Lynn <herbertl...>; Carolinabirds <carolinabirds...>
Subject: Re: bees on Oriole Jelly feeder
Orioles will eat raw shelled peanuts. A lot of birds that like suet or insects will eat raw shelled peanuts. Fatty and nutritious.
I like the recipe that Ann offers from her neighbor, although I'd change out bacon grease and use beef suet. When I have made "suet cakes" with bacon grease, they are fatty, messy, and greasy - a nasty mess. Beef fat (like from frying hamburger) much neater to work with.
I think, too, we are advised not to use Crisco to feed birds, as it is full of artificially weirded stuff like hydrogenated oils that birds may not be adapted to eat.
Suet is a natural food that many birds would eat in the wild (finding animal fat on carcasses in winter, for example) but today it too is "weirded" - since cows are fed some very odd things in feedlots, and as a result the chemical composition of animal fat from industrial livestock operations is quite altered from what human and avian bodies are adapted to.
And if you just aren't fond of what industrial animal production does to the animals or the environment, a decent substitute is good old peanuts (also produced at industrial scale with industrial processes, but still far less impactful than any kind of animal agriculture).
Betsy Kane
Washington, NC
On Wed, Mar 11, 2026 at 4:36 PM Ann Brice <carolinabirds...><mailto:<carolinabirds...>> wrote:
My neighbor in Wilson, NC, Fred Hite, has successfully used this suet recipe to feed orioles for years (and his mother before him.) Maybe this would work for you. I don't think the bees would swarm this. (I haven't used the recipe because I have cats in my yard, but he has had as many as 22 orioles in his yard.)
Baltimore Oriole Suet
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
1 cup Crisco or bacon grease
1/2 cup peanut butter (smooth or crunchy)
corn meal (Tender Bake self-rising yellow)
Combine sugar, water, grease and peanut butter and bring to a boil. Add corn meal until you get a semi-solid mixture. Fill holes in feeder.
He has feeders that he has made from a 2"x2" x 8" block of wood that he drills holes in about 1" in diameter. He inserts pegs for perches under the holes.
On Tue, Mar 10, 2026 at 8:29 PM Susan Campbell <susan...><mailto:<susan...>> wrote:
Teri and All,
Nope. There is no way to dissuade the bees given the open feeding scenario. And yes— bees are sure hungry right now! Cold weather will pull them back into their hives next week for sure.
Do you have a sugar water feeder for the orioles? Maybe just use that for now…..
Does anyone have any way to discourage bees on the jelly feeders? The orioles won’t come near it with all the bees on it. I know, the bees don’t have any flowers right now, so they need it, but neighbor is worried about the orioles not having a chance at the jelly. Thanks for any ideas! Teri Lynn
