Honeybees are eating the grape jelly meant for the Baltimore Orioles that have been wintering in my back yard for the past five or six years. (I use Whole Foods organic concord grape made with real sugar). Since the mornings are now cold, the Orioles can get the jelly for a limited time, then when the temperature reaches 50 degrees, the bees are back - about 40 or 50 of them. The Orioles have tried fighting off one or two, but they eye a big clump of bees and move on.
Does anyone have a solution for keeping the bees away? I have tried cloves, olive oil and putting a shallow dish with sugar water in a separate location, but none worked. I called a bee keeper and he said that number of bees wasn’t worth his time. This is the first time I’ve had this problem. I thought about putting the feeder in a plastic tub and covering it when the bees converge on it, but if I release the bees elsewhere, would they survive without their hive (which I don’t know where that is located).
When the Baltimore Orioles arrived from up North, they drank heartily from the two nectar feeders that didn’t have jelly, and they ate shelled peanuts from one feeder (which is unusual).
You may reply directly to me instead of the list serve if any of you have suggestions.
Thank you!
Patty McQuillan
Raleigh, North Carolina
Wake County
