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Honeybear did not care

10K views 34 replies 18 participants last post by  BeeManiac 
#1 ·
I just joined your site as I need advice with a problem. It is deer hunting and a hunter must have disturbed a bear yesterday, as last night a bear busted my hive apart ate all the honey and I've lost half of my bees. We have had a cold week and last night it was 27 degrees with a high of 34 today. We moved the hive into a well ventilated shed where they will be safe but with no food and winter coming is all hope lost for their survival.
Thanks, Sue
 
#2 ·
If you are saying the bees are OK, but have no stored honey anymore, it is possible to feed them sugar to get them thru the winter. There are quite a few options, this page from Michael Bush's site discusses many of them:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfeeding.htm

Personally, I'd just use granulated white sugar, placed on a sheet of newspaper above the frames where the bees are clustered. Put an empty hive body over the sugar to protect it.
 
#8 ·
Sorry about your loss - I once lost 10 colonies to bear. Never again. 3 of my 5 yards now have electric fences powered by solar energizers. The other two are in areas where I'm not overly concerned about bears.

The bears should be hibernating soon, so you've got a bit of time to put together your defense. There are lots of resources on the internet about bees and bear fencing; the most important point is the fence needs to be up and operating before bears learn of the tasty treats waiting for them. While bears will and do eat honey what they are generally after in spring is bee brood. Protein for bruins. Spring and early summer are the times when bears are most problematic for beekeepers, but as you found out they can do damage late in the year too!

Unfortunately in agriculture your best efforts and desires are often not enough to accomplish what you want. Given what you report the hive is unlikely to survive as a solo unit. If it were me I'd combine the surviving bees with another colony.

So it goes.

Bear fencing is not a physical barrier so it does not need to be super strong. What I have is electric netting, commonly sold as sheep fence, with additional grounding. 36-40 inches tall is plenty. The fence should be far enough away from the hives so that a bear can't reach over the fence and get to the hive. Be sure to test the fence once you have it up - either by grabbing it yourself or using a tester. Grabbing it will tell you if it works - the tester will tell you how well. I suggest the tester.
 
#9 ·
Grabbing it will tell you if it works ...
:eek: :eek:

... the tester will tell you how well. I suggest the tester.
If you don't want to spend money for a commercial tester, you can make one from a scrounged spark plug, and a scrounged ignition wire with a connector that fits to the sparkplug. I just bent a piece of scrap wire into a hook and attached that to the other end of the ignition wire. Gap the plug to your desired spark size. I just hook a ground wire with one end of the ignition wire, then touch the body of the spark plug to the hot fence wire. Works pretty well, and is free! :D
 
#18 ·
Hello and Thanks to everyone for your help. My hive that the bear beat up was surrounded by four foot high sheep fence, and then inside of that was an electric fence, but the charger must have been weak. We have had bears before but they have never gotten inside the fencing. Today, I put a bag of sugar in a super on top of the hive and I will just hope that they survive the winter. Thanks again. Sue
 
#34 ·
I have not had any bears but I would guess the hot wire should be on the outside to keep the bear off of the inner fence, once they defeat the sheep fence as it is now they are already half way to your honey, if the hot wire is on the outside they hit that first and it might keep them out of the other fence. (this is not from any real experience)
 
#22 ·
Our area of the Finger Lakes Regions is bear central thanks to NYS ENCON relocating numerous " problem bears" to our region over the past decade. In fall and spring we get visits from bears on an almost daily basis at the farm and if they are not after the equipment yard they are toting off a 5 gallon pail of waste vege oil we collect for our enviro-diesel what runs on it. I'm guessing from the piles they eat the vegetable oil to help keep themselves regular and it works. We run a 2 strand fence with one level 8 inches and the 2nd 18 inches around every yard,1 yellow jacketscharger and bacon on all 4 sides. We very seldom have bears get through. Our bears never needed any help from deer hunters to find us - I have to agree with the concept of needing to have the gun, My dad gave me his M-1 Garrand before he passed to help protect me from Bears but I have to say I never had it in my hand when I've come to face to fact with bear,usually I'm holding a pack of bacon and 4 d-cell batteries for a fence charger.
 
#26 ·
"There is no question that this technique is effective. Having said that I don't use it as I don't want to attract bear to my bee yards, and the wildlife biologist folks I have talked with frown on the practice. "

This is crazy. It is all about educating the bears. The fence won't stop them! If they are close enough to smell the bacon you are already in trouble. Not a question of attracting them as the honey has already done that.
 
#27 ·
This is crazy. It is all about educating the bears. The fence won't stop them! If they are close enough to smell the bacon you are already in trouble. Not a question of attracting them as the honey has already done that.
We're talking practices that we are comfortable with. I have three stationary yards with electric fences around them. I have lost hives (10 in fact) to bear when I first started working with electric fences, and hadn't set up the fence correctly. I don't think bacon would have helped in that situation.

Electric fences are not intended to provide a physical barrier - that is what the electricity is for. My goal in fencing is to keep bears out of my hives, hopefully by convincing them through experience that they'd rather have the pain free food that is available outside of my bee yard (and garden). Depending on your fence configuration an electric fence can also keep small predators like skunks and racoons away too.

So far so good, at least once I got the fences set up properly.
 
#28 ·
Just saying here that a fence with no bait in known bear territory is an invite for disappointment. Keeping the bait freshened is another task on the beekeepers long list that can often be neglected leading to disastrous results. I know this from several past experiences.
 
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