At the same time bees are stocking up for the coming winter, they are also running out of nature's resources. Summer's flowers are waning. Outside of a few fading zinnias and cosmos there is little nectar and pollen left for them to take back to the hive. Even the goldenrod has shed most of it's flowers. This is why a trash can with the remains of a glazed doughnut or a recycling bin with a few drops of sweet soda left in the bottom can attract what looks like an entire hive.
Here's what happens- When a worker bee finds even a small amount of a sugary substance this time of year she goes back to the hive and tells her forager bee peers all about it including how to get to her fantastic little find. We once left an emptied honey super (the box(s) with honey frames that sit on top of the brood box) in our back yard and had honeybees filling the air in that area for days even after the super had been removed.
This week our local recycling center has had its plastic/aluminum bins covered in hungry honeybees. Knowing that it is simply a group of foraging bees, albeit a lot of them, here is what it isn't. It isn't a swarm. It's incredibly rare for a hive to swarm in the fall. In Autumn, the queen stops laying eggs/brood and the hive becomes smaller. Hives swarm when they get too large for their hive and need to split into two hives. Half the bees leaves with the old queen and the remaining bees wait for the new queen to hatch. The only reason for a hive to swarm now is because it has been damaged or is in danger.
A few tips:
-If bees are in your recycling bin at home, keep it in your garage if you have one or keep it in a container with a lid. Rinsing out any container before recycling will also help.
-Don't feed the bees. Not all sweets are good for them. Outside of a few rare situations, they have plenty of honey saved up for winter. Think of people buying toilet paper in 2020. It's sort of like that.
-Take your recycling in early in the morning. The closer to the dawn the better. They won't fly if it's cold and they don't usually start foraging until after the sun has been up awhile.
-Don't swat at them. That's a great way to get stung. They aren't going to be as aggressive when foraging as when a beekeeper actually gets into a hive. They are though likely to be more aggressive than when swarming. If one lands on you, blow it away.
-As for trash cans, especially public cans like you find at a gas station, there may be bees (many kinds will show up this time of year). Find a can without bees if you are worried about being stung.
Whether you're looking forward to winter or not, it's coming. When it does, the bees will go home and stay there until next spring.
Audrey L Elder
Fourteen Acre Wood
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