Coffee grounds & honey bees
Posted: November 25th, 2008, 7:08 am
I got this via the form on the site. I prefer to deal with these things here, or on the HoneyBeeWorld list (http://honeybeeworld.com/mailman/listin ... eworld.com), so all can share and contribute:
Coffee grounds & honey bees
I have noticed that honey bees consume coffee grounds that I leave in a flower garden to compost. I then performed a test with coffee grounds, all of which started out as caffeinated. I placed the following on separate very small teacup plates:
1) Dry fresh (unused) coffee grounds.
2) Wet fresh (unused) coffee grounds.
3) Wet used (I made coffee from it) coffee grounds.
4) A tablespoon of honey.
5) There were flowers (daisies) close to the miniature dishes.
I observed:
1) Ignored by honey bees.
2) Slight honey bee activity.
3) Favorite of honey bees. A pile 1” high by 2” wide is consumed in 24 hours.
4) Ignored by honey bees.
5) Some honey bee activity.
What do you think? Are used coffee grounds an OK food for honey bees? Could honey bees create a coffee flavored honey? If so, there is a considerable amount of used coffee grounds at restaurants ready for use.
Ken Young