Honey bees for Dinner

[jgarzasr]

This may be a dumb question - but want your opinions.  I installed a pond in my yard last year - and with it - about a dozen Green Frogs showed up. It was cool... having them in there and seeing them eat all the insects.  I did notice they would eat Honey bees from our plants/flowers along the edge of the pond (which attracted many honeybees).  I didn't pay it no mind since they were not my honey bees.  Well I started keeping bees this spring and of course the honey bees found my pond as their water source and they are using it like crazy.  Well over the weekend the Green Frogs started coming back - I counted three.  All hang out by where the honey bees get water.  How many of my bees do you think they will get? and I am sure there will be more frogs to come. Thanks.

[FrogPond]

Frogs... now there is a topic of special interest to me.  :lol:

I doubt you will forfeit a significant number of bees unless you have a remake of the plague of frogs. In most cases predators and prey balance out, and since a healthy hive has more than 50,000 bees, it is doubtful that a handful of frogs will cause a big impact. Keep in mind the frogs have other food options they can - and will - use.

Congratulations on your pond - it sounds like a thriving ecosystem!

PS - where are you located? "Green frogs" is a little vague... do you know what kind of frogs they are?

[jgarzasr]

Thanks for the reply FrogPond - I was hoping and kind of assuming that the number they would eat would not be significant - but I hate seeing all my bees coming for water - only to get gobbled up.  But so it goes in the wild.  

Yeah I was actually surprised last year how many frogs we had in our pond.  I believe most of them were Green Frogs, but also had Leopard Frogs. We are located in southern Michigan - so we don't get a big variety.  But they are cool.  Actually enjoyed watching them more than the Gold fish.

[FrogPond]

Since you are in Michigan, check out this site from U of M... it is listed for kids but it is a pretty darn good site for general reference. The first link is for the home page... be sure to check out the "Critter Catalog" - the second link is to the Green Frog (Rana clamitans) information. Happy reading - and don't worry - I don't think they will eat too many of your bees!

http://www.biokids.umich.edu/index.html

http://www.biokids.umich.edu/critters/information/Rana_clamitans.html[/i]