I was sitting by the pond this evening, and noticed that the frogs were hunting honey bees! The frogs are called Yellow-Legged frogs, and are about an inch long. They climb up the rocks, out of the pond and sit below the hanging blossoms about 10" above them, and wait for a bee to land on a flower. They leap straight up, catch the bee, dive into the pond, and finish their meal beneath a rock. The bees are more than half their size!! Isn't that just amazing?!

Yes, that's amazing! I have seen green frogs go for honey bees and yellow jackets but not smaller frogs. You would think they would sting but, I guess if the frog "dispatches" them fast enough, they don't have time to sting. This year, we had honey bee hives put on our land (we used to have them in the 80's). There were honey bees all around my pond; I mean hundreds on a hot summer day. And yet, there were hardly any frogs around that pond. They (just green frogs, no bullfrogs this year) were hanging out at my smaller ponds. Maybe all that buzzing scared them but, if they could eat them, they certainly would not have starved!

LL! Sitting by the pond in November eh? Must be NICE!! I am so darn JEALOUS :(

I bet you are K! You would need the electric clothes to do that :rolleyes:

LL, what area do you live in that you still have honey bees buzzing around this time of year?

Oh, never mind LL. I just read one of your posts and figured out where you are!

Our neighbors keep bees and it's become rather a nuisance for us as every morning they just fly over to our yard and on occasion have swarmed frighteningly around our humingbird feeder. She once commented "I wondered where they were going as they always fly off in that direction" pointing to our yard. While I will never take a can of Raid to them, good to know the frogs we hope to have in our new pond may make a snack of them.

Ncturtle, honeybees will swarm after the hive hatches a new queen. The old queen and her most loyal workers will fly normally south of their location. Is your yard south of the hive? Before they fly off and swarm, the workers gorge themselves on honey. Because of that, while swarming, the honeybees physically CANNOT sting. So, that swarm is completely harmless to you and your family physically (if not emotionally). When they swarm in the future, call the bee keeper to round them up, or they will fly off and try to find a natural place to make a hive. At my great uncle's former house, there were honeybees in a 200 year old tree that was hollow on the inside. We've had these new hives for about 5 months now, and nobody has been stung. My father was stung when near the hive but by a yellow jacket hornet, not a honeybee. We had hives years ago for almost a decade back then until mites and ants killed all the bees. My father was stung once (in the head, ouch!) when a honeybee flew into his head while he was mowing. My brother was also stung on the head because he got close enough to the hive that he was in their flight path (which is best to avoid). So, my point is that honeybees are really fascinating and rarely a problem. I worked in my pond this summer surrounded by literally hundreds of them buzzing which, trust me, was very disconcerting. They were coming in for water. Your mind tells you to panic but you have to ignore them, move slowly, keep your head down, and pretend nothing will happen (and nothing has so far!). Our bee keeper when he set up the hive said he picks bees that rarely sting. To illustrate this, he picked one up and fondled it. It didn't even try to sting.

If you ever do want to spray various insects to kill them, I suggest at least using some of the all natural organic products and not the nasty pesticides which also harm you and your family. I have "Victor Poison-Free Wasp & Hornet Killer." It really does work using just foamy mint.

For more on honeybees and stinging insects by the pond, see
http://www.fishpondinfo.com/insects/honeybee.htm and
http://www.fishpondinfo.com/pcare.htm#wasp (which I never got around to moving to the non-existant page of http://www.fishpondinfo.com/insects/sting.htm but may one day for future readers of this thread.).

I agree with you, I've never been stung by wasps or honey/bumble bees. And only once by a yellow jacket. I just talk to them calmly and work smooth...nothing aggressive and we're both fine. :D New babies will just fly into you and bounce off, so I have to swing my hair once in awhile. Growing up me and dad used to have wasps walk on our arms to freak mom out ( what a great memory ). Only bees I don't like and will get rid of asap are the ground bees.

Wow! I can't believe your little frogs don't get stung by eating bees!! I think by now all of my frogs have eaten and been stung by eating a bee or one of those shiny blue-black wasps. The first time that happened I really really REALLY thought the frog was going to die. Their little bodies swell up and they claw at their mouth and belly, they spit up slime but NOT one single one of them have ever spit the bee back out. Somehow the next day they looked fine and were still alive. And then they still eat more bees. :blink:

Wow! I've never seen any of my frogs develop a reaction to bee (or hornet) venom but, then again, I haven't seen them eat stinging insects in my presence for years.

My frogs eat the bees just fine - now, yellow jackets are another story! Best I can figure, they have to catch them a certain way or they get stung/bit. :o I have observed one frog catching a YJ and immediately spitting it out, then another frog will circle about until gets just the right angle before it catches the YJ.

I still can't believe that they can eat something so large in one swallow!!!

Robyn, I might not have been clear on my earlier post. I wasn't actually asking a question about the bees but instead sharing that I was glad to stumble upon an interesting anecdote. Also, probably just venting a bit of frustration over an annoying neighbor (I know, I'm the only one with an annoying neighbor here, right! LOL). We have two acres of gardens and naturally have bees and their nests all over, but don't worry, I'm not really going to spray them with Raid. :)

Hi ncturtle,

Uh, this may be a bit inappropriate to post (LOL) but if the bees are swarming your hummingbird feeder, I would probably get another cheap hummingbird feeder, fill it full of sugar water and place it close to your neighbors property line. Maybe the lazier bees will stop there first for the sugar water and may leave your other hummingbird feeder alone? Either that or get some yellow-legged frogs?? :D

I love it! :D What a fantastic idea!

Oh, when you had said they "swarmed" around your hummingbird feeder, I thought you meant a true swarm. That's when thousands of honeybees leave the hive to find another hive. Perhaps you simply meant that a bunch of them were hanging around the hummingbird feeder to get sugar water? They don't bother our hummingbird sugar water but the European hornets do. Some times I have to wait until after dark to retrieve the feeder to refill it because there is no bee or hornet sting worse than the European hornet. I was stung twice a few years ago. I had to keep ice on it for weeks (my leg was hot and swollen) and take pain killers. You could see evidence for literally two months after I was stung. [I'm not "allergic" to stings.] In comparison, a honeybee sting is a gift! Amazingly, I've yet to be stung by one! Just ground/sweat bees, European hornet, yellow jacket, and maybe a wasp when I was real young. I got the ground bees following my father after he went mowing and stirred up a nest. Those were bad because it was many stings.

Our stinging insects can only feed from one of the feeders and not the other. Most hummingbird feeders have bee guards on them to deter bees and hornets. I also made a vinyl-coated hardware cloth cage to go over the ports on one of the feeders. That keeps out most bees and hornets. If you have more than one sugar feeder, the honeybees may still use both if they can access the sugar water. Also, whoever is maintaining the hives should know if there are a lot of honeybees at the sugar water. That means they may not be getting enough nectar. In that case, mostly in spring and fall, our keeper hangs a jar of sugar water over the hive itself to give them what they need.