# What birds eat honeybees?



## philip.devos (Aug 10, 2013)

This morning i "found" my copy of Jay Smith's "Better Queens". I had misplaced it in my flawed filing system several months ago.

I read his recollections as a child when his dad was keeping honeybees. It seemed a King Bird was eating honeybees, so his dad shot him with a 22 Smith and Wesson.

Then I recollected how during the past summer a very suspicious wren was always hanging around the front of the hives. I didn't actually see the wren snatch a bee, but I figure he is guilty unless proven innocent.

What other birds are honeybee murderers?


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

Eastern Kingbirds with the yellow breast, western kingbirds with the white breast, I have both and don't raise queens so don't worry much about them. A colony of purple mountains will eat some bees. Those are all I have seen working my yards.


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## Cleo C. Hogan Jr (Feb 27, 2010)

There are several birds that will eat bees. I have the most problems with mocking birds. I have never killed any, but, I know they catch a lot of bees. Cat birds are also a problem occasionally. 

If your bees are in an area that has dragonflies, they are more problems than birds.

cchoganjr


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## treetrunk (Apr 25, 2013)

Cleo C. Hogan Jr said:


> There are several birds that will eat bees. I have the most problems with mocking birds. I have never killed any, but, I know they catch a lot of bees. Cat birds are also a problem occasionally.
> 
> If your bees are in an area that has dragonflies, they are more problems than birds.
> 
> cchoganjr




In my area I pretty much make it a point to dispatch all mourning Dove, white winged dove, band tailed pigeon, ducks, geese, Valley quail and turkeys around my yard. I like to be proactive....


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## GZB (Jan 29, 2013)

One day I watched from my window as two small birds took turns perching on a fence post in ten feet front of one hive and snatching bees from the air as the bees came and went. They had an 'on deck' perch for the next one waiting their turn. They were out of pellet gun range and the hive was booming, so I just took in the show. I never did figure out what species of bird they were.

My property backs up to a swamp so I also have a substantial dragonfly population. The bees just have to deal with it. I'd need a shotgun to try and hit those things!


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## r hayden (Sep 27, 2012)

Summer Tanager terrorized my hives last year for a few days. He's fly in, grabs one, flys to a bench and rubs the stinger off. Found +30 stingers on that bench. I was able to "scare" him off after that.
The worst offenders are the European hornets. When I seen them hovering in front of the hives I swat them out of the air with my ball cap and stomp them, got about 20 last year.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

philip.devos said:


> What other birds are honeybee murderers?


I have seen dragonflys going after drones. I don't know anyone who could pick one out of the air w/ a 22. That would be something. In SC they are big enuf to be mistaken for a bird.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

treetrunk said:


> In my area I pretty much make it a point to dispatch all mourning Dove, white winged dove, band tailed pigeon, ducks, geese, Valley quail and turkeys around my yard. I like to be proactive....


And well fed?


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Look up pictures of Summer Tanager. It is one of the most beautiful birds you will see. It is also a voracious bee eater.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I've always figured the swallows eat some, but they seem to eat more mosquitoes than bees... so I try to encourage them...


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## Birdman (May 8, 2009)

I would have to say a hungry bird.


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## D Semple (Jun 18, 2010)

Summer Tanager










A lot prettier than the picture.


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## lazy shooter (Jun 3, 2011)

Wheel bugs and dragon flies are the only things that I have ever seen eat bees, and I didn't think they would eat enough bees to be harmful to the health of the hive. Some posters have stated that turkeys ate bees at the hive entrance, but there are lots of wild turkey around my apiaries, and I have never seen one eating my bees.


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## brooksbeefarm (Apr 13, 2008)

Dead birds are the only ones i can think of when i see them in action.


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## Gypsi (Mar 27, 2011)

Robber flies have been my worst problem, although I do have some dragonflies around, and I have occasionally seen a mockingbird waiting on the fence near the hives. The advantage to being organic is the wide selection of food for dragonflies and mockingbirds. the dragonflies fly patterns over newly mown grass at dusk, crisscrossing the field, pretty cool to watch. Mockingbirds have a feast of all kinds and I encourage them in the garden. Robber fly I have seen snatch bees


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## Cleo C. Hogan Jr (Feb 27, 2010)

I did not describe it, and I have not photographed it yet, but, mockingbirds will sit on the bottom board and catch the bees as they land. They then fly off, and in just a few minutes they are back. At the time I thought they were feeding young. Later in the year they will clean the area below the bottom board of any dead bees. Last week I saw a mocking bee getting dead bees that had been pushed out of the hive during a two day warm spell, and I thought, they are still here.

cchoganjr


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## Riskybizz (Mar 12, 2010)

Fusion took your recommendation and looked up Summer Tanger's

"Summer Tanagers hang out high up in the tree canopy, but even with their bright colors, they are hard to see in the foliage. They have a song that sounds like an American Robin’s, very musical and cheery. Male are the ones that usually sing, but the females will sing an answer to the males when on their breeding grounds. They are excellent flycatchers, flying out to catch insects on the wing. They especially like bees and wasps, and may hang out around bee hives."


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## Gypsi (Mar 27, 2011)

Cleo 

You must have more mockingbirds than I do. I've seen them on the fence above the hive, but never on the bottom board, and the dead bees, they are still out there today.

But my local mockingbirds hold an aerial battle and only one male is allowed to nest here, usually in my pine tree


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## trottet1 (Jul 18, 2013)

I never considered birds as a problem before reading this post. I am making bird houses and butterfly houses to decorate my bee yard. Are the bird houses going to be a problem?


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Birds aren't usually much of a problem. They are integral in the Natural Selection Process.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

Barn Swallows can become a problem too. I used to have some of my hives on a farm where they were set up about 50 feet off the bank of a small lake on the property. On more than one occasion I drove up to witness at least a few dozen swallows circling the lake in single file, and as their route brought them near the hives they would descend directly into the bees flight path and dart around grabbing bees as they passed by. They would quickly regain their position in formation and circle the lake to repeat the process .... over and over. 

I eventually located a better spot to set up and moved my hives off the property.


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## Cleo C. Hogan Jr (Feb 27, 2010)

Gypsi said:


> Cleo You must have more mockingbirds than I do.


The Stovall yard, is the only place I have a problem. I must have at least a half dozen breeding pairs of mockingbirds there.

I have tried and tried to get a photo of them sitting on the bottom board, but, they fly away, and come back as soon as I get out of camera range. If I don't have a camera with me they don't fly away. I am going to try again this Spring.


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## REDWOOD (Feb 5, 2014)

In the UK we have the tit family, swifts and swallows who are partial to a bee or two.


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

Um, before you start dispatching birds that are (believed to be) preying on your bees, you might want to consider that many birds are protected species (not endangered , though some are also be that, simply PROTECTED species). This means it is *illegal to kill *them under US Federal law.

Here is a list (It is poorly alphabetized, with screwy indentation, but an official FWS source, so I'm adding it.)

http://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/regulationspolicies/mbta/MBTANDX.HTML

The above list is only those covered by the Migratory Bird Act, which is the largest category, by number of species. The additional birds with protected status are described here:

http://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/regulationspolicies/treatlaw.html

Pretty much all the birds noted by previous posters (with the exception of pigeons, aka "rock doves") can't be killed.

The fines and penalties are not minor.

If these birds eat a few bees - or even lots of bees, so what? They are otherwise essential to the ecosystems of North America and the US, because they eat mostly other things, which is critical to the overall environmental balance. In the case of the Migratory Bird Act these birds are protected by International Treatiy because the birds don't "belong" to just one country. We'd be outraged if people/farmers/sportsmen in other countries killed the birds that migrate to the US, so it cuts both ways I think.

I realize that bees munching up foragers is one thing, while catching a queen on a mating flight is much more consequential. But, still, the law is quite clear on this: don't kill the birds.

Enj. (Daughter of an ornithologist, so raised to be bird-loving.)


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## Randy south MS (Aug 7, 2013)

My worry are my guinea's I have 30 roaming the place. I have seen them walk right past the front of the hive and never eat a bee, but I do wonder. They are quick on the draw, they can catch a house fly on the wing and do it so quick if you blink youll miss it.


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## sterling (Nov 14, 2013)

If a few bees won't be missed neither will a few birds???


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## sterling (Nov 14, 2013)

Randy south MS said:


> My worry are my guinea's I have 30 roaming the place. I have seen them walk right past the front of the hive and never eat a bee, but I do wonder. They are quick on the draw, they can catch a house fly on the wing and do it so quick if you blink youll miss it.


I have a neighbor who had guineas that fed all around my bee hives but like you said I have never seen them eat a bee. I hope they eat SHBs. The red tail hawks ended up getting the guineas so I guess it is like the survival of the strongest.


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## funwithbees (Mar 27, 2010)

I watched black capped chicadees picking up chilled bees that landed in the snow during cleansing flights this last Saturday. temp was 28F.The snow under bushesopcorn: in the beeyard where they perched to eat their snack was littered with scrap bee parts that were not edible. I did not see them snatching any flying bees though.
Nick


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## CessnaGirl (Jan 7, 2014)

We have lots of birds around but I only see them grab discarded pupae and larvae. Now, toads, that a different story. We have cane toads, an invasive non-native species, and they eat a ridiculous amount of bees, plus they are dangerous for pets. We had to get over killing them. In Florida, we are encouraged to kill them along with iguanas, Cuban tree frogs, curly tailed Bahamian lizards, and several others. Our native lizards are too small to eat adult bees but love the dead larvae. Another eater of bees is our spiders but they also eat mosquitoes, so an occasional bee I can live with. Do chickens eat bees? I was thinking about getting a couple.....


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

Actually, "a few birds" WILL be missed. That's because in North America in most cases the migratory songbirds are here during their nesting period. And many migratory birds only breed a few times in their lifetimes. So killing them here would have a big effect on species-level replacement because it would disrupt the breeding cycle in an outsized way.

And bees number in the 10's of thousands, per hive. The density of migratory bird is orders of magnitude less, except in some species during the migration, which is almost always a short-period event and not going to result in regular daily bee-predation, so it could be safely ignored.

Of course as I noted above in the case of queens on their mating flight, they _are_ exposed during a once in a lifetime foray, so she is vulnerable. But you are very unlikely to see a queen getting eaten by a bird, so you'd be making a big assumption that the cause of her non-return was birds, vs. say the windshield of a car, or a bug-eating lizard, or your bug-phobic neighbor's weekly visit from the Exterminator. 

I'm not trying to argue you out of killing birds - though I can't see why you would choose to do that - just trying to make sure no one is unaware that virtually all song birds and raptors (hawks, owls, eagles, etc., though it boggles the mind that they might be considered bee-predators!) in the US are protected by Federal law. Game birds are subject to both Federal and State hunting laws. Heck, this extends to possession of wild bird feathers, nest and eggs. So, even the relatively harmless picking up of shed feathers, rejected and abandonned eggs, or an empty songbird nest seen in a bush in the depths of winter would get you in hot water without a Fish and Wildlife permit. 

The lack of knowledge of this is demonstrated that some people above were openly alluding to violating a Federal Law. Most people really don't know that most birds (and bird parts, like feathers, eggs and nests) are protected. On a home-decoration blog that I visit there was consternation when I pointed out that decorating with wild song bird feathers and nests and birds' eggs (collected and "blown" to evacuate the contents - and such pretty colors!) that was being described, and much-admired, was flat-out illegal. But, it's just "a few" and there are lots more birds, I was told. Nope, still illegal, and more importantly, environmentally wrong-headed. 

Surely, beekeepers being in general world-class inventers can figure out how to protect the bees (if not their queens) around their hives from birds? At least enough to reduce the peril to such a low level it was almost negligible, on the order of bee-squashing when re-stacking the boxes during inspection.

Enj.


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## Cleo C. Hogan Jr (Feb 27, 2010)

enjambres said:


> Um, before you start dispatching birds ....... This means it is *illegal to kill *them under US Federal law Enj. (Daughter of an ornithologist, so raised to be bird-loving.)


There are lots of exceptions to these laws. Destroying crops, endangering livestock, etc. I have never killed any, because my losses are likely small, but, they can be eliminated, and it can be done legally.

cchoganjr


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## Colleen O. (Jun 5, 2012)

Since I started beekeeping I have noticed a gray bird with a snazzy crest hanging around but haven't seen them eating bees. I don't know what it is but am curious.

I have never seen Robins after the bees but I have seen them eating Japanese beetles so I hope they are helping reduce the SHB population while they are at it.

I have had three later season (late July) queens not return from mating while all of the earlier ones (mid June) made it back. It made me wonder why, but if I was able to identify a culprit it would just help me make a management strategy that works around the cause.


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

enjambres said:


> even the relatively harmless picking up of shed feathers,


Relatively?! You can make a case that it could be somewhat harmful? A case of guilty until proven innocent.


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## sterling (Nov 14, 2013)

A bird just has to eat one bee to destroy 50,000 bees. And that being a supercedure queen on her mating flight. But like I said earlier the strong usually wins and in that case the bird is the strongest but man can be and should be the strongest if nessesary.


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## FlowerPlanter (Aug 3, 2011)

enjambres said:


> Um, before you start dispatching birds that are (believed to be) preying on your bees, you might want to consider that many birds are protected species (not endangered , though some are also be that, simply PROTECTED species). This means it is *illegal to kill *them under US Federal law.


Bees are considered livestock, and as far as I know you can kill a predator to protect your livestock. 

One or two birds getting a bee now and then is fine, but if a bird, animal or bug takes up residence and continually getting bees is a different story. (So far it's only been bugs)

I do have a problem with robber flies, they fly in and grab a bee, land and suck the juice out in about 5 min then go in for another. I have seen as many as ten on the side of my before I realized what they were doing. A flat board makes a good bat. Keeping the numbers down, I only see one or two. 

https://www.google.com/search?q=rob...v&sa=X&ei=b6nzUtOSFITMsQTBnoKgAQ&ved=0CCQQsAQ


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## AR Beekeeper (Sep 25, 2008)

Enjambres is correct, it is a violation of federal laws to kill or to possess any portion of a bird on which there is no declared open season. There are exceptions for birds doing damage to crops, but you must follow federal guidelines when you do remove the problem birds. The guidelines usually require a permit be issue that tells you when and how you can remove them. If you think the Feds will turn a blind eye to violations, you had better think again.

There is a saying in this area, the only way to get away with a game violation is to shoot, shovel (bury the remains), and shut up!


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## sterling (Nov 14, 2013)

I am not advocating breaking a federal law. Even though there are many laws on the books that are on the books to make tree huggers feel good.
Isn't oxalic acid vapor in bee hives illegal in the U.S.?


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## red (Jan 15, 2013)

It's only illegal if you get cought.


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## KPeacock (Jan 29, 2013)

I'm sure everyone has their own beliefs on this subject, and I think thats just swell. I say, "Let them be" to all the critters of the fields and forrest...until they start to do damage to my property/home. At that point, I feel justified in taking whatever action may be necessary to stop the damage. 

The spirit of most related laws are pretty much of the same idea.


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## Flyer Jim (Apr 22, 2004)

red said:


> It's only illegal if you get cought.


Thanks Red, that was one of my grandfather's favorite sayings


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Tell that to your Grandma and see what she says. It's still illegal if no one does it.


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## philip.devos (Aug 10, 2013)

sqkcrk said:


> I have seen dragonflys going after drones. I don't know anyone who could pick one out of the air w/ a 22.


He said his dad shot him at 25 yards, and the firearm was a revolver. I think his memory played tricks on him.


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## tommyt (Aug 7, 2010)

philip.devos said:


> He said his dad shot him at 25 yards, and the firearm was a revolver. I think his memory played tricks on him.


I have shot plenty with a BB gun
Not the redryder


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

I would not shoot birds getting after my bees. The birds don't eat enough bees to have any kind of impact on the hive. The exception being eating a queen on her mating flight, but that is so unlikely as to not be an issue.

However, while _technically_ true, there is no way the Feds are going to come after you just because you pick a Robbin's feather off the ground. First of all, they don't care, and even if they did care, they don't have the resources to be policing such activities.


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## hotlanta_buckeye (Jul 12, 2012)

Trying to keep the birds in your yard from eating bees is the beekeeping equivalent to the war on drugs.........
Save your ammo for the bears!


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

In answer to the OP...birds that are hungry...and fast.
Deknow


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Save your ammo for the bears! 

Quote of the day...


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