Late winter/early spring here in New England, we had an unseasonably warm day (those seem more frequent lately).
I went outside to check on my hens and there were tons of honeybees going crazy for their chicken feed!
The birds didn't seem to mind the bees, nor vice-versa (except when one of my girls wanted a little extra crunchy snack)
I didn't think bees would be interested in chicken feed. I've always been more concerned about rodents there.
I looked into it, and apparently it's a common thing...the chicken feed is high on protein, which they need early in the season for feeding all their larva...but at the same time, not many flowers are coming up yet.
It's a special formulation of honey called "bee bread".
These were "layer crumbles", chunks of chicken food, looks like Post Grape Nuts cereal, but not as good. Lots of dust in there as well, which clings nicely to the bees "fur", sort of like pollen would.
Anyway I thought that was cool.
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Bees avoid ‘too much of a good thing’ by balancing nutrients in pollen | Spyke
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Late winter/early spring here in New England, we had an unseasonably warm day (those seem more frequent lately).
I went outside to check on my hens and there were tons of honeybees going crazy for their chicken feed!
The birds didn't seem to mind the bees, nor vice-versa (except when one of my girls wanted a little extra crunchy snack)
I didn't think bees would be interested in chicken feed. I've always been more concerned about rodents there.
I looked into it, and apparently it's a common thing...the chicken feed is high on protein, which they need early in the season for feeding all their larva...but at the same time, not many flowers are coming up yet.
It's a special formulation of honey called "bee bread".
These were "layer crumbles", chunks of chicken food, looks like Post Grape Nuts cereal, but not as good. Lots of dust in there as well, which clings nicely to the bees "fur", sort of like pollen would.
Anyway I thought that was cool.