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Keeping your hives safe in Tornado Alley

3K views 14 replies 10 participants last post by  Ross 
#1 ·
I don't have any hives just yet, but I was wondering, since a large, severe storm came through overnight, with lots of rain and wind gusts, how do you keep your hives from being blown over?
 
#3 ·
This is what I did. Land lot Tree Grass Landscape Plant community
The bench keeps the hives off the ground and the yellow ropes keep them fairly secure (note the bungee cord tightening the slack in the ropes between hive one and two, counting from the left). The bungee cord allows me to release the ropes in seconds for hive maintenance. We routinely have 50-60 mph gusts associated with thunderstorms. We also have prevailing winds around 10-20 mph most days in March & April. I've set some plywood at the end of the bench next to the chair to give the bees a break from the prevailing winds. You're bees are not going to survive an attack from a tornado no matter what you do, so why worry?
 
#4 ·
wow...... nice pic... seems a bit OCD but who am I to say!

I don't do anything. good covers. natural wind breaks when avalible... but some hives are flat in the middle of open fields. even cattle.... I lose maybe 1 cover a year to winds (I use deep rimmed telescoping) never had a hive tip on its own or wind.
 
#8 ·
If Lee is OCD, then I'm beyond the pale, I guess. I have my hive stands set in concrete and I use ratcheting tie downs on each box. Having lost my entire operation to hurricanes several times when I was in Florida, I decided to take no chances here in Alabama. LOLOL I was so eager to get away from the hurricanes that before I moved here I never even THOUGHT to ask about tornadoes and wound up in the soup all over again! So far we've lost a porch roof but the hives are doing fine.

:D

Rusty
 
#11 ·
Rader, I don't know. It is pretty level today, but it does rock a bit....might be due to the winds.

I've never seen trees dance before. They were waving back and forth and up and down like a cartoon (take a moment to imagine that). Mature elms peeled from the top down like a banana. Caused by shear winds. I'm still thankful that my house was minimally affected. 300 ft down the hill from those hives is where the tornadic winds were the worst. Lost 34 mature trees uncountable damage to many, many others (3.5 acres) in the once thick timber on the river bank.

Happy to be alive. During the storm, three hives were untethered 150 feet behind the trees in the picture...They were strewn with the wind. I restacked them ( all touching each other and against a post) during a lull, and they all survived. Didn't flourish, but survived. Was an emotional time during and for a couple weeks after. I can't imagine the heartbreak of the thousands who have lost all they possess to a big wind.
 
#12 ·
Well this is just one person's experience, along with luck or Divine Intervention, but I had three out of three hives actually survive a tornado. They were two 10-frame deeps with one honey super each on cement blocks. They had standard telescoping covers, each weighted down with a large rock. A quarter mile south a double-wide mobile home and a two story house were destroyed, 75 yards north the wind was strong enough to bend 6' T-posts stuck two feet in the ground, the roof of our chicken house 100 feet to the west had the roof ripped off (but the chickens were still there on their roost), and we had scores of trees uprooted. One shed was blown over (50 feet away), but others that sat up on cement blocks were undamaged, except for some broken windows.

I'm not saying one good rock will keep a hive safe, I just had to share my story. I don't know if having a little bit of an air gap between a structure and the ground may have helped. Tornadoes are strange and unpredictable forces.
 
#13 ·
Yea winds do a crazy bit of damage at times and curious damage at times too. I figure my hives will just be toast. Rusty - I like your idea.

With Hurricane Rita we had 120 mph sustained winds with gusts to 135+. Saw a place with chainlink fence that had the gate chained with 3/8 hardened hasp lock. Pull the lock open and broke the hasp. Sucked 4 overhead type doors out of a building but 2 feet in the door a plastic folding table with package of wire connecters sat unharmed.

Glad you were ok.
 
#15 ·
I have hives in Lamar County and Hunt County (20 years). I have never weighted a top or strapped a hive except for moving day. I have never had a hive blown over. I have had them knocked over with a brush hog. I try to back my hives to a tree line where possible to break the north and west winds. This is as much for wintering as anything else. I keep my hives low. My hive stands are landscape timbers flat on the ground. My stacks get up to 6 or 7 mediums, not any taller. I use flat plywood tops with no rim and I have never had a top blown off either. Rims catch wind.
 
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