If you need to bring it indoors to warm up, keep it in a ventilated, lidded container. Once it starts to move around more, bring the container outside and leave it there with the lid off.
Be sure that you’re placing the mixture on a surface that will hold the bee food without soaking it up. Take care not to drop the mixture directly onto the bee. A 1:1 mix of organic sugar and water will also work.
If the wings are still mostly intact, you’ve likely found a worker bee that was taking work too seriously and forgot to drink. Leave the bee outside in the sun with a bit of honey and water mixture. He’ll get back to work once he’s satiated.
If you feel compelled to offer the bee some water and honey, it’s fine to do so. Within a couple of minutes, it should be able to fly away. The best course of action may be to simply place the bee on a flower and allow nature to proceed unspoiled by your manipulation.
Though you can glue some butterfly wings back together with acrylic glue, this will not work on honeybee wings. Honeybees would be much harder to hold, pose a danger to you, and have smaller wings. Honeybees would also groom the glued wing immediately, getting glue all over and injuring themselves further.
It is usually only the queen honeybee that survives the winter. She carries the responsibility of establishing a new colony the following year.
Allow trees and bushes such as linden, black locust, honey locust, Russian olive, wild plums, elderberries, red maples, willows, butterfly bushes, and honeysuckle to blossom as well. Contact your local natural resource management office for information about what you can plant to help the honeybees in your area.
In particular, mow fields with lots of milkweed, smartweed, and dandelion before applying any chemicals. Otherwise, these plants will likely be covered in bees!
Always read and follow a pesticide’s label. Choose products that have a “short residual” impact and are labeled “low hazard. ” Alfalfa, sunflowers, and canola are especially attractive to honeybees, so take particular care when treating these crops.
If it’s expected to be cold the night after application, apply an insecticide in the beginning of this time frame. Colder weather may allow the insecticide to remain toxic for longer, so you want to allow more time before bees return to the fields. For corn, apply an insecticide anytime between late afternoon and midnight.
Watch out for an ingredient called imidacloprid, as this is the most common neonicotinoid. Many of Bayer’s products include it. Understand that by using these products, you’re likely making the plants you spray toxic to honeybees.
