Day 17: swollen
Do chickens eat bees? Do they get stung?
There’s a surprisingly lively conversation about it online. There are bee- and chicken-keepers who deliberately keep hives near their henhouses. They say the chickens help by eating dead bees and hive parasites and almost never get stung. There are bee- and chicken-keepers who say their chickens won’t touch a bee, dead or alive.
And there was one poor soul having no luck at all because her chickens stationed themselves outside the hive entrance and plucked delicious bees out of the air as soon as they appeared.
Our garden is full of bees, including some great big (rare) bumblers. This is bee conservation country. I’ve seen my chooks chase them (and the cats too, for that matter) but never seen them eat one.
October 17, 2018 — 7:00 pm
Comments: 11