Any outdoor brewers attract honeybees when brewing?

[boxboybrewing]

I noticed the last two times I brewed, there are 5 or 6 honeybees who just hang around. I'm a BIAB brewer, and I brew on my back porch. These bees show up and drink from the grain bag while its draining. Its kinda cool, actually. They've gotten "friendly" and land on me and crawl around once in awhile. I DEFINITELY dont look or smell like a flower! Lol. Anyone else have thos type of experience?

 

[Kickass]

All sorts of critters come around to see what I'm brewing. I usually name the beer in honor of whatever falls into the boil kettle. My junebug summer session IPA turned out pretty tasty.

 

[philjohnwilliams]

Not bees, but late summer brews attract a swarm of wasps.

 

[yourlastchance89]

Wasps. Spelt wort on my porch once. Literally 4 wasp nests popped up by the next brewday a week later.

 

[MaxStout]

Just wasps around here, mainly yellowjackets. Particularly bad this time of year. Anything sweet gets their attention.

 

[jrowland74]

All sorts of critters come around to see what I'm brewing. I usually name the beer in honor of whatever falls into the boil kettle. My junebug summer session IPA turned out pretty tasty.

Haha. Me too! My last brew I found 2 bees in my BK. I named it Shakespearean Stout (two bee or not two bee)

 

[thehaze]

Both bees and wasps, but not as much now, as the weather is getting cooler... But yeah, some drown in the boiling wort. It happens.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Yep, lots of bees and wasps. At the moment I have a millipede explosion in my brew cave.

 

[Nagorg]

Yes, the smell of sweet wort will often bring in the bees for me too. It can be pretty annoying.

 

[specialkayme]

As a beekeeper, I'll tell you it will depend largely on the time of year.

Honey bees (yes it's two words, not one word) are scavengers of choice. During most times in the spring, flowers are blooming in abundance. They'll choose flowers for nectar over your wort. When mid summer hits and temps start to rise, flowering plants stop producing nectar. At that point the honey bees will collect anything that is sweet. If you have a colony nearby, you can actually create a robbing frenzy, which is a mass fight over the food source, if you leave it out long enough and they are able to bring the sweet wort back to the hive and communicate to their sisters where the food source is. It typically takes a few hours for that to occur, so it usually isn't a problem.

Wasps, including yellow jackets, are carnivorous. They don't want carbohydrates. In the spring and early summer they want bugs and "meat." They ignore almost any sugar source. It's protein they want, not carbohydrates. However, as summer presses on, the colony gets larger and their need for food increases. At this point they become desperate. They begin switching to carbohydrates (sugars) as a food source over protein. That's why you notice yellow jackets as a problem more during 4th of July parties than Memorial Day parties.

Both usually don't cause a problem though.

 

[jrowland74]

As a beekeeper, I'll tell you it will depend largely on the time of year.

Honey bees (yes it's two words, not one word) are scavengers of choice. During most times in the spring, flowers are blooming in abundance. They'll choose flowers for nectar over your wort. When mid summer hits and temps start to rise, flowering plants stop producing nectar. At that point the honey bees will collect anything that is sweet. If you have a colony nearby, you can actually create a robbing frenzy, which is a mass fight over the food source, if you leave it out long enough and they are able to bring the sweet wort back to the hive and communicate to their sisters where the food source is. It typically takes a few hours for that to occur, so it usually isn't a problem.

Wasps, including yellow jackets, are carnivorous. They don't want carbohydrates. In the spring and early summer they want bugs and "meat." They ignore almost any sugar source. It's protein they want, not carbohydrates. However, as summer presses on, the colony gets larger and their need for food increases. At this point they become desperate. They begin switching to carbohydrates (sugars) as a food source over protein. That's why you notice yellow jackets as a problem more during 4th of July parties than Memorial Day parties.

Both usually don't cause a problem though.

That's very interesting. Thanks for the info! I'm actually planning to start beekeeping in the next year or so, and this thread had me wondering if it would just add frustration to brew days!

 

[kh54s10]

I brew on a screened in porch so I have not really noticed.... Did have a bumble bee come in through the open door once. It flew a couple of circles then went out the way it came in.

 

[specialkayme]

I'm actually planning to start beekeeping in the next year or so, and this thread had me wondering if it would just add frustration to brew days!

I typically have 10-15 hives in my back yard, about 20 feet from my back porch. Each hive has between 30,000 and 60,000 honey bees in it. So on any given day I have between one third and one million bees a stone throw's away from my sweet wort. They haven't caused a problem for me yet

If you don't give them a water source close by, they will try to suck the water out of your spent grains though. If you leave it lying around.

What's more interesting is they can learn when a particular food source is available. If you keep a bowl of sugar water out on your back porch between 1pm and 2pm every day for a week, you'll notice on day 8 that bees will start visiting the site around 12:45 pm, waiting for the food to arrive. More interesting still, research has shown that they keep track of this based on an internal clock, and not based on the position of the sun. Doesn't really mean much for brewing, unless you brew every day at a particular time, during a nectar dearth, but I find it interesting so I'll spend the time typing about it

Good luck with the bees. They're fun little creatures. Read a good book, take a good class, find a good mentor, and buy a nuc. Then sit back and watch the little girls work.

Did have a bumble bee come in through the open door once.

Props for noticing the difference. To most people if it has yellow and black it's a "bee." They don't notice the difference between bees and wasps/hornets, let alone different categories of bees (honey bees, bumble bees, carpenter bees, ect.).

 

[JugDog]

This one took a swim in my mash tun

 

[Henbrew]

I sometimes have honeybees around my kettle during the late summer/early fall. I've had a few batches where they actually ended up in the wort and sometimes don't find them until bottling/kegging time. Never hurt the beer though.

 

[MaxStout]

Props for noticing the difference. To most people if it has yellow and black it's a "bee." They don't notice the difference between bees and wasps/hornets, let alone different categories of bees (honey bees, bumble bees, carpenter bees, ect.).

I cringe whenever people refer to bumblebees as "yellowjackets." Those same people often think yellowjackets are "bees."

 

[BrewMan13]

Once I had a disaster where I lost an entire batch and had shards of glass to clean up on my back deck. Bees were swarming all around during clean up, and not one tried to sting me. Just glad something was able to make use of the spilled batch...

 

[Dland]

Neither wasps or bees are likely to sting you when they are feeding, but if nest is near, they can be aggressive in defense of it. This is most true of yellow jackets. There usually are some around in fall, late summer, but brewing in the shade makes it not a prime foraging area for them.

A yellow jacket nest near where you work or pass regularly may need to be destroyed, as some are pretty aggressive, but it should be kept in mind they are valuable predators and help control pests like all the invasive moth larvi that defoliate your trees form time to time.

 

[MaxStout]

CSB: Once had a yellowjacket nest in a narrow crack under the threshold of the door to our deck. We couldn't sit on the deck without those wasps shooting out of the crack and going after us. After a few stings I bought some wasp spray, shot a bunch of it inside the opening (did it at night when they are all inside). Next day, there were still plenty of wasps. Apparently, the spray wouldn't go far enough in to kill the colony. Finally called the Orkin guy. A hundred bucks later the wasps were gone. Money well spent--I don't like getting stung and I certainly don't want guests to get stung, either. The exterminator put some dust near the entrance, the sentries pick it up on their feet and bring it inside where it kills the whole colony. After that, I caulked that crack under the door frame.

Paper wasps, OTOH, don't bother me. They are not overly aggressive and they prey on lots of garden pests. If they leave me alone, I leave them alone.

 

[boxboybrewing]

Wow! That's alot of good info! I am also considering beekeping in the near future. As I am a gardener, I love to watch them pollinate all the blooms. Plus, I like mead. Might as well get some honey I can turn into an alcoholic beverage!

 

[Nagorg]

 

[Derp]

I'm plagued by flies in the warm months in south Texas. Lots of mosquitoes are drawn to the garage when filling kegs and discharging large quantities of CO2 into the air.