Blueberry juice

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beebabyelle1
Nursebee
Posts: 28
Joined: Tue May 31, 2011 5:24 pm
Location: Summerfield

Blueberry juice

Post by beebabyelle1 »

This past year only, we have noticed our honeybees feeding on our field of cracked blueberries right on the plant. I noticed the fig posting and wondered if this was bad for the bees also. They were not foraging on the ones that dropped from the plants until none were left on the bush. We collected honey after this happened and it didn't taste like blueberries, but they certainly were taking up the juice like we were feeding them sugar water. I have pictures of them foraging the ones on the ground. They are truly amazing creatures. They seemed to prefer this over the clover although they were on the clover too. Any thoughts? We have 400 blueberry plants and the entire field was a buzz, with no yellow jackets..
Jacobs
Guard bee
Posts: 1887
Joined: Sat Feb 17, 2007 12:36 pm
Location: Greensboro, NC

Re: Blueberry juice

Post by Jacobs »

I haven't seen anything firm establishing that feeding on the juice of damaged fruit does the bees any harm. Has anyone else seen something?
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