Do Bats Eat Bees?

[oregonbeekeeper]

YES! bats can have huge fangs.

When I worked as a biologist in the philippines I helped a friend of mine who was doing research on “flying foxes” I can’t remember the genus sp. name but they are the largest bats in the world and eat fruit. In the evening they fly very high in the air and they look like seagulls with long slow wing beats. So one evening we went out to capture and put transmitters on a few. Using a mist net (think of a fishing net made from monofilament) that was suspended about 200 feet in the air we caught two of them and lowered the net to the ground. AS the net got bigger I was astounded by how big they were!! YIKES, their wingspan approached 4 feet. So you have to grab them with BOTH hands and untangle them from the net while not trying to get bit. They are hissing, and craning their necks to try and bite you and they have some of the scariest set of teeth you can possible imagine. He was bit on one occasion and the bat bit through his flannel shirt, a heavy pair of leather gloves and still punctured his hand with enough force that it bled for about 30 minutes.

So indeed, perhaps the best way to describe these bats would be the deadly rabbit from the holy grail.

[wayacoyote]

Moral of the story....
Look but don't touch....
and keep a Holy Handgrenad handy.

Wayacoyote

[jfischer]

Bats are constant tenants in my barn, and
I let them be, as they let me be.

I've put up 3 of the "bat houses", but
our bats seem to like the rafters of
the barn better, so I leave them an open
exit at all times.

Back when I was a boy, we had bats in the
attic of the old victorian we lived in,
and one would get down into the house
about once a year due to the attic
stairway door being left open.

We would wave brooms and mops back and
forth to create a "wall of moving objects" and slowly herd the bat (flying all the time, of course) towards the nearest door.

My "batting average" was pretty good.

If any of my bats have rabies, I've never
seen a dead one, and I've never see
them do more than flit around and dive
at bugs at dusk. They have yet to
bother the cats, the dog, or Prudence
The Wonder Pig, so I see no reason to
worry about them.

I've never seen bees flying as late as
the earliest that bats come out.

[oregonbeekeeper]

Bats carry rabbies but it does not kill them.

the bats in the barn and not the bat box is a common scenario, they are somewhat reluctant to start using the boxes..