There are trace minerals that are essential to honeybee health found in pollen, and in the nectar of flowers that the bees forage to convert to honey. Honeybees at this time of year are rearing baby bees at an accelerated rate, and this requires adequate nutritional forage in order to maintain a healthy brood of new bees. Your spring bloom is probably not sufficient as of yet for the bees to get all the minerals they require, and the urge for the bees to forage is great. So they may at this time of year look for trace minerals at places that may contain odors.
I hope you enjoy the bees in your owl box for years to come!

It is a time now, before the flowers come up, to feed them with sugar water, .....if you want them to be happy??
Boil water, heat off, then dissolve same amount with sugar and put it into a dish with a wood float so they don't drown.
Konrad

Joe, I would be interested in your source of info about the bees mixing minerals with the pollen or feeding the minerals to the brood directly. I thought that they only fed pollen to their brood, and only honey for the adults.

In my experience, the pollen was stored when available, and when it ran out it ran out. They do forage for stuff for propalis, but I didn't know they also foraged for other than pollen and nectar.

Bees don't mix minerals WITH pollen; pollen contains minerals (along with lipids, sterols and other vital enzymes when bee bread is made by the bees).

If Joe doesn't mind, I'll offer an answer as to a source for information about the adult honeybee consumption of pollen. See pages 56 - 61 (cc 1987) of "The Biology of the Honey Bee" by Mark Winston (ISBN 0-674-07408-4). Professor Winston goes into a fair amount of detail discussing the consumption and digestion of pollen by both larvae and adult bees. For instance, "It generally takes 1-3 hr for a pollen mass to pass throgh the digestive system. The digestive process is similar in larvae and adults..."

If you're interested in honeybees and haven't read this book, I'd highly recommend it. It covers virtually all aspects of honeybee biology and is very "readable".

txbee, I'm quite certain that bees don't mix minerals with pollen, but I read that as what joe wrote. Foraging because of inadequate food from bloom implies that what they were foraging for was food. I don't know everything, and maybe something new has been found out about bees eating something that doesn't come from a floral source. I was not inquiring about adult bees eating pollen, more about them or the brood eating minerals found in the dirt.

Pete,
Oh, I see what you're saying.

As I read the second to the last sentance from Joe's posting, I read it more in the vein that the "odor" may be tricking the bees to investigate a potential source of minerals (at other than a floral source).

Your question would make for a great little "research project" for some entomologist grad student (assuming they could find a mineral source that would be acceptable to the bee's "taste" and digestive system).

Today a swarm of bees took up residency in my azalea bush. For me this is not a good place. What should I do?

Presuming you're not in Arizona, Southern California, New Mexico or Texas, the bees are pretty harmless and benign.

You could take up beekeeping. :-)

or you could call a local beekeeper and ask him if he'd be interested in collecting a swarm. (Tell me your city & state, and I'll find you someone to contact).

Or you can leave them alone for 4 or 5 days and they'll be gone, in search of a new home.

I came home from work last night and a swarm of bees had landed on my Magnolia tree. I'm looking on the internet for a beekeeper to see if they would collect them but I'm having no luck. Is there a chance they'll move soon on their own? I'm really concerned about them because they are in my front yard and I caught the neighbors son throwing rock at them... talked to his parents but theres more kids on the street. They seem really docile but I dont know much about bees and it looks like there are at least 500. I live in Wylie Tx, a suburb of Dallas.
Thanks

Yep, send me an email with your phone number and/or address and I can come collect them (I'm in Allen). Tell me how far up the tree they are (how far off the ground?).

Thanks, I sent you an email with my contact number.

I live in Wylie TX and have found HUGE bee hive in front yard tree. I want to get rid of them. Does anyone know a beekeeper in this area?