Helping wild honey bees in winter?

Early this year (Jan or Feb) I accidentally dropped some candy canes in the yard and I was surprised to find bees trying to get to the sugar through the wrappers. I put out syrup and brown sugar and nearly a hundred of them came whenever it was warm enough.

I am wondering if others offer food to wild bees to help them through cold late winter days when flowers are still unavailable? It's similar to feeding wild birds after snow anyway. Or is there any down side doing this?

I stopped feeding them when the early wildflowers started blooming. In my area they are dead nettle, henbit and dandelion, weeks ahead of flowering trees.

Love those dead nettles! I would look for plants that have a early flower. One that come to mind is red bud (Cercis canadensis). Another flower common henbit (Lamium amplexicaule) is one I see in my lawn a lot.

It also helps native bees to furnish them places to live during the winter and water.

Some threads:

https://permies.com/t/114809/permaculture-projects/wheaton-labs-bees-mason-bee

https://permies.com/t/120678/DIY-Mason-Bee-House-Instructions

Eastern redbuds are a bit late this year, still one week away. The earliest flower tree is Bradford pear which is in full bloom right now.
I don't see solitary bees coming out so early, only the honey bees. Also I am not sure if they are really the wild type, there no one raising bees that I know of in the 1/2 mile radius.

May Lotito wrote:Early this year (Jan or Feb) I accidentally dropped some candy canes in the yard and I was surprised to find bees trying to get to the sugar through the wrappers. I put out syrup and brown sugar and nearly a hundred of them came whenever it was warm enough.

I am wondering if others offer food to wild bees to help them through cold late winter days when flowers are still unavailable? It's similar to feeding wild birds after snow anyway. Or is there any down side doing this?

I stopped feeding them when the early wildflowers started blooming. In my area they are dead nettle, henbit and dandelion, weeks ahead of flowering trees.

May, that was well-intended, but is not really recommended.
Offering sugar, syrup or honey to wildlife is not necessary as the wild bees normally only emerge once it is warm enough for local flora to bloom. Most solitary bees don't overwinter as adults but as larvae. The bee in your picture is a honeybee which is neither local nor endangered (normally a beekeeper will take care they have enough food during winter). Offering sugar in the open can even result in upsetting bees and inciting bees to attack other hives.

What you could and should do in any case is let enough plants grow and flower (especially "weeds"), if necessary inform yourself about the native plants of your zone and plant or sow more of those. If the picture shows a red dead-nettle it is not even native to America and only few generalists (like the honey bee) can take advantage of their nectar. As species co-evolved over millions of years they need the plants local to their zone.

As to the season: Nature has taken care for millennia that insects find flowers or other food in the times slots they are active. A continuous "nectar flow" all year round is not necessary, not even for honey bees.

Thanks for the suggestion, Anita. I did some more reading and now I got a clearer view.


1. First of all, all honey bees are non-native in north America. There are feral swarms living in trees and those are more adapted to the local condition and healthier than purchased swarms for bee keeping. Those are the ones I am seeing now, no wonder they like weeds originated from Eurasia: dead nettle, dandelion, clover etc. But I am not going to feed them in winter any more so only the strongest will survive. In an older post people mentioned Dr Leo Sharashkin and his natural beekeeping in the Ozark area. Maybe I will try that in the future.

2. There are many kinds of native bees and I see them mostly in the warmer season and they tend to be quite specialized in pollinating certain plants. I am increasing the varieties of native plants to give them more food sources. I drilled some holes in old logs but never checked if there is any dwelling inside. There are areas left unattended in the yard for the little critters to hide.

An interesting observation: native violets are blooming next to the dead nettles and the honey bees won't touch them. Instead, a different type of bees love violet but not dandelion or dead nettle. I don't know what are these small bees, maybe they are native to North America?

It is said the native bee species and population have declined sharply due to the introduction of non-native honey bees. Here I saw they prefer different flowers as food sources and there was no direct competition in this case. So maybe as long as I plant lots of native flowers to balance with the introduced ones, it will help both kinds of bees.

Lovely pictures, May!
I am quite sure the little bee is native to North America (guessing you are in North America). To my knowledge, only the honey bee was introduced when the settlers arrived.

In Germany alone we have around 540 species of native wild bees and probably in North America you have even more. It can be quite difficult for laypersons to identify them. I always capture them on picture if I see them in my garden but many of them I don't know the correct name of. I simply enjoy their presence.