# Do birds eat your bees?



## rtowerbay (Jan 12, 2017)

I live in the Kansas grasslands where about the only trees around are those that people plant, water and maintain. Consequently, our 40 acres, with a few thousand trees and shrubs that we've planted over the years, is kind of a bird magnet.

That got me to wondering if I should be concerned about birds preying on the two hives of bees I'll be starting this year.

A Google search showed that some of the birds in our area do, in fact, eat bees. Mockingbirds, kingbirds, thrushes and woodpeckers are "known to eat honeybees".

My wife and I have been entertained many times watching kingbirds sit on a perch (tree branch, fence wire, etc.) then suddenly fly up to catch a moth or butterfly or other winged insect in flight. 

Mockingbirds and thrushes seem to mostly hunt on the ground. The mockingbirds out here will hop around on the ground with their wings outspread in an effort to scare up a grasshopper but usually not catch them in the air. I suspect the mockingbirds and thrushes would mostly eat dead or dying honeybees they find on the ground rather than pursuing a flying bee.

I think woodpeckers and flickers have a tendency to return to an area that has consistently produced food before so I worry that they might "camp out" near the hives, or even perch on the landing board and feast on my honeybees.

Have you had any problems with birds eating your honeybees?

Thanks!

Randy


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Not enough to worry about. I have 100 nesting pairs of Purple Martins ever year, along with 25-30 pairs of Barn Swallows and 10-15 pairs of Tree Swallows that all nest on our farm. All of those are aerial insectivores. Flying insects are all they eat. I have had no issues raising queens that have been caused by birds eating the bees. If I can raise queens, nobody should blame birds for messing up a bee hive.


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## GaryG74 (Apr 9, 2014)

Several birds eat bees: wrens, flycatchers, phoebes, and many more. Bottom line is daily, normal mortality is more than the birds will eat. Of course if they catch a queen on her mating flight, that's a big impact. I don't worry about birds eating bees. Dragon flies catch more bees in my area than birds.


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

Do you have western (white breast) or eastern (yellow breast) kingbirds? They live off my bees all summer! I some times think I need to thin the herd but my mother wouldn't like it. I just wish they would leave while I was there!


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## tmwilson (Apr 5, 2015)

I have purple martins by the hundreds that congregate on my clover field when the bees are foraging. Nothing to be done about it and like Brad said I can't really blame any losses on them. I know they eat a lot of bees though. I wouldn't think a few solitary type birds would do near the damage as flocking type birds.


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## rtowerbay (Jan 12, 2017)

Vance G said:


> Do you have western (white breast) or eastern (yellow breast) kingbirds?


We actually have both kingbirds here . We're pretty much right in the middle of the central flyway so we have a lot of diversity of bird species. In fact, we have both red-shafted and yellow-shafted flickers. They often cross-breed in this area and we see a lot of orange-shafted flickers.

But those kingbirds love flying insects!


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## jbuzz (Jan 27, 2015)

Catbirds hunt my hives hard.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

Several years ago I had hives set up on a farm and they were located near a large pond on the property. More than once I would drive up to the hives to see numerous barn swallows flying in a circular pattern around the pond, and as they neared the hives they would all go into a diving flight pattern right in front of the hives, then back up to cruising altitude around the pond again. Not sure how many there were, 20-30. 

I no longer have hives at this location.


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## Tejones121 (Apr 28, 2015)

I never noticed birds hunting my hives until I read this post. Then yesterday I noticed several small bird(sparrows maybe) around my hives. I guess my cat noticed them too because this morning he was crouched between two of the hives, getting ready to pounce on one of the birds!


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## BadBeeKeeper (Jan 24, 2015)

I have scads of insect-eating birds here- flycatchers/phoebes, martins, woodpeckers (including Northern Flicker), catbirds...and the dragonflies are uncountable. I have not noticed any of them paying any attention to the hives or bees. I have a pair of flycatchers that nest over my front door (under the porch) every year, I have seen them snag dragonflies but never a bee. I tried removing the nest a couple of times, but they are persistent and kept rebuilding it, eventually I gave up...it's kind of fun to watch them raising one or two sets of young every Summer. We sit on the porch and watch them, they aren't really bothered by our presence...and we have plenty of blackflies and mosquitos for them to feast on.


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## Michael B (Feb 6, 2010)

Short answer...yes, birds eat bees. One of my out yards in an old abandoned farm. There are barn swollows by the hundreds nesting in the barns. I can watch them prey on the bees. No really worries but its cool to watch.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

GaryG74 said:


> Several birds eat bees: wrens, flycatchers, phoebes, and many more. Bottom line is daily, normal mortality is more than the birds will eat. Of course if they catch a queen on her mating flight, that's a big impact. I don't worry about birds eating bees. Dragon flies catch more bees in my area than birds.


We have Eastern Phoebes (my screen name Phoebee comes from them ... they named our mountain retreat). The phoebes hang out on the apiary fence. However, they don't seem to go after flying bees. They appear to be picking up dead bees hauled out by the undertakers, or the occasional crawler.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

I guess I'm not as quick to brush it off as others are. After I did the math I moved my hives to another location... just in case. 

Let's say I have 30 barn swallows flying around the lake and eating a bee each time they circle in front of the hives ... and maybe they make 100 circuits over the course of a day ... that's 3000 healthy foraging bees lost every day just from the birds. Seems like a lot of extra work for the queen and an unnecessary strain on the colony. 

Maybe I'm overthinking it, but I can't get past the math. If there's 10 colonies there, not a big deal. But if it's only 2 or 3, that has to have an impact.


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## flyin-lowe (May 15, 2014)

Ill have to see if I can dig up the photos, but several years ago (before I had bee's) I had gotten my first DSLR camera and was starting in photography. I set out and was taking pictures of tree swallows feeding their young in a gourd in my backyard. The hive must have been near by because the birds were only gone 30 seconds to a minute and they were coming back with something to feed their young. Once I got the photos on my computer and blew them up I could tell they were honey bees. I had hundreds of photos from one setting so I am sure it was going on daily as they fed the nest of babies. I posted the photos on a purple martin website and later on one of the bee magazine ended up contacting me and used the photos in their magazine for an article they wrote on birds eating honey bees.

I think it depends on the species of birds and where they feed at. I too have purple martins and they feed at higher altitudes then bees would normally travel. Obviously the tree swallows found a hive and were picking the bees off as quick as they could.


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## Duncan151 (Aug 3, 2013)

I have more dragonflies eating bees than birds!


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## missybee (Sep 6, 2014)

We have a opossum that loves the bees, luckily it just inhales the dead ones on the ground, comes by every evening looking for bodies. 

I have 10 ponds, 60 plus bird houses, a real mix of birds flying in the yard, in the 3 years we have had the hives we have not had any known issues with the birds eating enough to damage a hive.


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## philip.devos (Aug 10, 2013)

One wren I have named BEE BREATH eats quite a few bees. He sits on the ground a couple of feet in front of the entrance and then jumps up to grab a bee.

I don't mind the wrens, but I don't like the large hornets that come by and grab bees. They then sit up in a nearby tree, chow down, then come back for more.


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## BDT123 (Dec 31, 2016)

Here in the Boreal Forest the Black Capped Chickadees really mow down on dead bees in the snow around the hives. Have not witnessed predation of live bees, but some serious cleanup on the dead. Huzzah!


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## zonedar (May 14, 2015)

Last year had several violet-green swallow working the hives. Was almost as good as watching the Blue Angels, but was a daily show.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Summer Tanagers will eat a ton of bees and because of their method of feeding, they are deadly to virgin queens. They will perch on a limb near the hive, then swoop down and grab a bee from the landing board. Drones, queens, and workers all are the same to them. A family of summer tanagers will eat their weight in bees daily. I generally don't kill birds, but make an exception for summer tanagers. They kill queens too often to allow them to use my beehives as a larder.


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## n5odj (Mar 22, 2006)

Last year, one of my hives was quite aggressive & I couldn't figure out why. Man, were they cranky... Simultaneously, without immediately making the connection, I observed a mockingbird standing at the hive entrance, picking off a few bees. Well, I shot that stupid bird & within one day, the hive was back to their normal happy selves.


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## Matt_inSC (May 12, 2015)

n5odj said:


> Well, I shot that stupid bird...


That made me laugh out loud. Thanks for the morning humor.


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

These guys come thru in the spring and fall. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee-eater
We're not in charge of the world but are just a small part of the grand picture.
Us whining about birds and bees is kind of silly imo. 

There are far more important problems in the world than "a bird ate some of my bugs". 

If it's logical to kill the bee eaters off then it's just as logical for all the bees to get killed off because three kids are allergic to them.
Live and let live.


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## ritan1 (Nov 10, 2015)

Tejones121 said:


> I never noticed birds hunting my hives until I read this post. Then yesterday I noticed several small bird(sparrows maybe) around my hives. I guess my cat noticed them too because this morning he was crouched between two of the hives, getting ready to pounce on one of the birds!


Yes, this is what goes on in my yard as well. I have a number of kingbirds that catch bees in the air, but a bunch of sparrows and mockingbirds that get the dead/dying bees in front of the hive. And my neighbor's cats sit quietly beneath the hive stands, hunting the birds. It's all part of the "circle of life" - nature (or what little of it exists in the middle of a city). Not enough birds to make a dent in my hives.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

My first year last year. I had a lizard living in an empty hive that I had baited up for a trap and on the same stand as my other hives. I picked a preying mantis that had set up shop right above the entrance of one hive. I had humming birds checking out the hives. I had dragon flys landing on the hive and sitting there. I had a snake sitting by the bucket I sit on to look at the hives. It probly wanted the lizard. I had red wasp move into a long hive that sits next to my hives and is also baited up. I see birds hanging out in the trees behind the hives. I honestly have not seen anything go after a bee yet but figure they are hanging out there for a reason.

I did smash the preying mantis.
Cheers
gww


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## beez72 (Feb 10, 2016)

I had bees attacking my flowers took care of them right away. lol


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## DanielD (Jul 21, 2012)

We have only lived on our property 4-5 years and the first year I had bees, there were a lot of dragonflies cruising the hives all the time by mid summer. I saw them go after bees often, though I also saw bees chase them away. Last year there were more swallows, phoebees, eastern kingbirds, etc. than before since we have left the place grow instead of being grazed heavy before we got it. The birds spend a lot of time cruising the 2 acre pond 220 ft from the hives, and there were a lot less dragonflies last year and I really didn't notice them around the hives. I think the birds are a better deal than the dragonflies. I have seen an eastern kingbird spending a lot of time around the hives before though.


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## Hops Brewster (Jun 17, 2014)

Do birds eat my bees? Not while my dog is outside. His favorite pastime is chasing birds and eating them when he can catch 'em. His second favorite pastime is eating bees, when he can catch 'em.

So no, I don't worry much about birds.


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## ToeOfDog (Sep 25, 2013)

Cardinals. They sit on a branch then swoop down flying through the flight pathes of all the hives catching a bee in mid air. Then land on a branch at the other end. Five minutes later they make another run. Their problem is they land in the same exact spot every time that is very predictable.<GGG>


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## Pesho (Jun 12, 2014)

Brad Bee said:


> Not enough to worry about. I have 100 nesting pairs of Purple Martins ever year, along with 25-30 pairs of Barn Swallows and 10-15 pairs of Tree Swallows that all nest on our farm. All of those are aerial insectivores. Flying insects are all they eat. I have had no issues raising queens that have been caused by birds eating the bees. If I can raise queens, nobody should blame birds for messing up a bee hive.


Thank you for clarifying. So much inaccurate info out there!


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