Jerome Guillaumot (Jeg)'s Photos : Popular Photos : The "African hunter" as it is called in France is a very efficient insects predator. No flying species appears to be fast enough to escape from their chase. I got as much as 12 Bee-eaters each one holding an insect in its bill on a single photo. Here we can identify Cicada, Great green Bush-cricket and Painted Lady. Their diet is very diversified. They can literally eat any flying insect depending on avaibility. In may they are more feeding on hymenopteras while during june and july cicada is their main dish. According to my observations they don't seem to bee a serious threat towards domestic bees as they are often considered by beekeepers. They don't chase further than 3 km from the nest. So there is no risk for beekeepers as long as they keep at a distance from those very rare breeding sites. I never identified a domestic bee on any of my thousands of photos of bee-eaters preys. Though i admit it can be different in others places...- powered by SmugMug