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Nectar is a sugary water that attracts bees to flowers for pollination. While the bees drink, pollen gets stuck to their bodies. As they fly from flower to flower, the bees unintentionally spread pollen from the male to female flower parts, which in turn creates more flowers. It is incredibly beneficial to attract bees to your garden, but sometimes bees can get sidetracked before fulfilling their purpose. 

Hummingbird feeders are filled with sugar water that is similar to nectar, and placed in a feeder that resembles a flower. They attract hummingbirds to your garden — and are a bulls-eye for bees. Solitary bees, such as carpenter bees and bumblebees, will stay and sip at your feeder all day, while honeybees will alert the entire hive to its presence. A hummingbird feeder swarming with bees isn’t ideal. For one thing, it means you’ll have to refill your feeder more often, which is not only annoying and costly, but could be dangerous. For another, it’s keeping the bees away from the job of pollinating, essentially filling them up on bread instead of the main meal. Finally, bees could be keeping hummingbirds away, and spotting hummingbirds is probably the reason you put up a feeder in the first place. 

Accordingly, there’s a smart reason some people take their hummingbird feeders down for a day. If bees have discovered your feeder and won’t move on, try taking it down temporarily to keep the bees away. The bees won’t wait around for it to return, but move on to a new food source — hopefully to your un-pollinated flowers.

Scientists at Newcastle University found that bees get a positive high from sugar that can last up to 10 seconds, and they will continue at the same food source seeking more sugar highs until it is gone. It’s why bees will stay on a single flower until it has been drained of all nectar, and why they aren’t leaving your hummingbird feeder, with its endless supply of liquid gold. Remove the supply, and the bees will leave. Keep the feeder away for at least 24 hours, then bring it back. If you are still dealing with bees around your hummingbird feeder, try relocating the feeder to a new spot, at least 10 feet away from the old one. Hummingbirds will have no trouble locating the feeder, but bees tend to be slow at finding new food sources. 

To keep bees from coming back, keep the outside of your feeder clean of sugar water. And if your yard lacks bee-friendly flowers, plant some! The bees will prefer the flowers over the feeder, but resort to the feeder if it is the only food source (just keep the feeder a good distance from the flowers). You can also purchase a hummingbird feeder with bee guards that make it hard for bees to reach the nectar, but fit the long, thin tongue of a hummingbird.