sierrabees
11-11-2007, 09:02 PM
I lost four of my best colonies to bears this year. They were in Langstroth's with standard equipment plus SBB. The damage was extensive since the bears turned the hives over, removed and ripped apart the frames, ripped out the SBBs and fed from the bottom side, etc. Besided losing most of the bees the equipment was unsalvageable except for the boxes themselves.
This morning I decided to take a look at my one and only long hive. To my suprise, the lid was on the ground and the hive was half way off it's pallat. My electric fence had shorted and a bear had decided to check things out. On close examination, one top bar had been ripped out but it tore loose from the cross bridged comb underneath so Bruno only got a piece of wood with a strip of empty comb attached. There was no evidence that he/she had even gotten enough to bother chewing up what was there. Appearantly without the convienient spacing of standard frames there wasn't anyplace to get a claw through to easily rip out all the frames. Other than being cold and wet because of the rain last night, the bees were tightly clustered on three frames and looked OK. I just put the top bar back where it belonged trusting that the bees will re-attach the comb on their own schedule, moved the hive back where it belonged, and fastened everything down as tight as possable with ratcheting tie downs, including strapping the long hive and pallat together, then I located the short in the fence and fixed it. I wish I had had topbar hives in the yard the bear hit in August. He was rewarded so well at that time that he hit two more yards within two weeks.
This morning I decided to take a look at my one and only long hive. To my suprise, the lid was on the ground and the hive was half way off it's pallat. My electric fence had shorted and a bear had decided to check things out. On close examination, one top bar had been ripped out but it tore loose from the cross bridged comb underneath so Bruno only got a piece of wood with a strip of empty comb attached. There was no evidence that he/she had even gotten enough to bother chewing up what was there. Appearantly without the convienient spacing of standard frames there wasn't anyplace to get a claw through to easily rip out all the frames. Other than being cold and wet because of the rain last night, the bees were tightly clustered on three frames and looked OK. I just put the top bar back where it belonged trusting that the bees will re-attach the comb on their own schedule, moved the hive back where it belonged, and fastened everything down as tight as possable with ratcheting tie downs, including strapping the long hive and pallat together, then I located the short in the fence and fixed it. I wish I had had topbar hives in the yard the bear hit in August. He was rewarded so well at that time that he hit two more yards within two weeks.