Just noticed this while over at my parents place by the feed shed . Don't think I've ever seen bees attracted to crack corn ...or really any dry corn. And looks like there lil pollen do hickies are full too

They are loading that pollen up from the corn and why they are there. Spring is around the corner pollen is their protein source and what they larva get feed. Quens should start laying down there again earlier than up here. Have to build up the population to go after the spring nectar flows.

For those that don't know. Summer worker bees (females) live about 6 weeks, wetter they live maybe 6 months. the queen 2 to 3 years. drones (males) are only there to reproduce. In the fall they get evicted to go off and die, the queen slows laying and stops in prep to bring the population down and have enough food to keep the colonial alive and not starve out in winter. It's a balancing act she also has to keep enough of a population to create heat and not freeze.

They don't have anything else to eat right now. They need the protein to raise their larvae. It takes about 3 weeks to go from egg to flying bee but they spend their first couple weeks inside before foraging. So the corn is going to bees that won't be flying around for another month or so.

When the bees start moving here in the spring, they are thick on the cracked corn we feed the goats and pigs.

If they don't belong to anyone and you want to start a hive, you can pretty easily follow them back to their hive when they are laden down like that, when it's in the low to mid sixties. Once the nectar flow is good in your area, you could then extract them and set them up in a hive box.

Keith