Hives & Livestock...

[DLee]

Hello All,

If you locate your hives within an area containing livestock (cattle, horses), do you need to take any special precautions? Does there need to be a seperate fence protecting the hives?

[beegee]

Livestock seem to be clumsy and curious and horses aren't too fond of bees anyway. I would probaly use an couple of strands of electric wire just to keep accidents from happening. Bears like larvae, skunks like bees. Cows and horses like molasses really well. I don't know if they like honey, but I can't imagine they wouldn't.

[Michael Bush]

I agree. I have my hives in the middle of my horse pasture, but if they weren't fenced in I think they would knock them over. They would run away afterward, but that wouldn'thelp the bees much. The bees don't bother the horses much (the bees don't care about the fence) and with the fence, the horses don't bother the bees much.

I did have a yearling mare reach over the fence and knock over a lot of equipment which she then drug out and stomped on for fun. She also ate (yes I said ate) an empty deep box.

I should have put the boxes further from the fence.

[Rob_Donna]

You have to watch the cows, they like to try to use them for scratching posts!

[beekeeper28]

Goats will be trying to reach a close as possible to the hive to get some weed growing close and end up getting stung on the nose which makes them mad and they head butt the hive which is not good for the hive or the goat.

[Daisy]

I have one hive located close to the pastor and everytime I'm working that hive, Dakota our paint, comes up for friendly scratches....