A better offer?!

[Almorley]

I had a good spring honey harvest on Sunday, and after the extraction, I put the spinner, buckets and filters out for the bees. This usually creates a frenzy but they are absolutely not interested in taking back what was theirs.

There are more bees in the water trough 5 feet away from the filters and cappings I left out.

I know there are chestnut trees, fruit blossoms and OSR (etc) well within range. It’s bee paradise with this combined with the lovely weather, but is there a reason they are ignoring the easy pickings?

 

[Erichalfbee]

It’s not a good idea to open feed bees in this country. You will attract lots of robbers

 

[beeno]

Honey needs to be diluted before it can be ingested.

 

[dpearce4]

I'm so glad they arn't taking the honey. It is Really Really Really bad practice to put your extraction equipment out for bees to clean up. That's what buckets, soap and water were invented for.

You Might just be passing on undiagnosed disease to other peoples hives. Emagine how you would feel having to destroy your hives because they got EFB or AFB from someone else doing that from hives that were infected.

 

[B+.]

It’s not a good idea to open feed bees in this country. You will attract lots of robbers

Not to mention the risk of spreading disease (I am not saying you have it, but, it's a great way to spread it if you did)

 

[madasafish]

Cases of AFB have arisen in this country from leaving open empty uncleaned containers of imported honey outside #. Robber bees carried AFB spores back to their hives.

# Tracked by DNA analysis I believe.

 

[enrico]

The best way to feed it back to the bees in your apiary is to put it in a rapid feeder above a hole in a feeder board.
E

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Lazy and silly practice. Never leave wet kit out for the bees to clean surefire way of triggering robbing, inconveniencing your neighbours and risking spread of disease - spend five minutes with a hose and cold water and clean it yourself.

 

[Beefriendly]

Never leave wet kit out for the bees to clean surefire way of triggering robbing,

Does it though? Is this just another beekeeping mantra/myth?
I've accidentally triggered similar behaviour with wet supers by not sealing them off from the bees sufficiently. But I've never found any robbing between hives afterwards.
Maybe with all strong colonies there will be no robbing.
Don't know...and not disagreeing with idea of not letting bees clean up used kit...just thinking out loud as it where.