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Storm Damage

3608 Views 13 Replies 10 Participants Last post by  Drifter
We had a strong storm move through KC last night with 70 mph winds/heavy rain. The supers/lid to one of my hives were blown off and it rained 3 inches down through the hive bodies all night. I was out of town this weekend and discovered it this afternoon. I put the hive back together but those bees weren't happy. The supers had been 'cleaned' by the surrounding hives. I'm assuming that the brood/eggs were all lost in those conditions. It seperated at the queen excluder which is a slick plastic. I should have spent a few extra $ on the wood/metal and this may not have happened.

Anyone else been blown over by winds?

Thoughts?
DLee
1 - 14 of 14 Posts
No, but don't know why not. 2 of my 4 hives have no windbreak, and I was just sure that one of them would go over.

The wind WAS impressive, wasn't it? My daughter was at camp, and they made the kids go into the basement until after midnight.
I live east of downtown, the news said the downtown airport clocked 60mph winds. I had just put on medium supers about 6pm.

I put 1/2 of a cinder block on top of mine. After the storm let up and went out and looked and everything was fine. The girls were out flying today.

Are yours out in the open? Mine are at the rear of my backyard with bushes behind them (west side) and the garage is to the south of them about 20 ft.

I was surprised there weren't more limbs down here. My BBQ gril and smoker usually blow over in these storms, not this time. My youngest son was at Boy Scout Camp for Mic-O-Say Tribal feast. They didn't get the storm as hard as we did here.

Do you belong to a Bee Club?

Martha - just south of the river
All my hives survived but my ash tree decided that my back porch was more inviting then standing tall....so......it blew down (snapped 8 feet up) and went sailing through my back porch destroying everything in its path......
Not lately but I had four hives blown over by 60 mile an hour winds once. They survived. I'm sure they took some loses. I'm not talking about lids blowing off. The whole hives went over. Part of my roof went also.

I have also seen lids blow off in wind and rains storms. Don't remember any that didn't survive because of it.
My hives line up facing the south... backed up against a barn. The one on the East end was "topped". I knew it wasn't good when I heard all the buzzing while coming through the barn. I had a half of cinder block on my lid too but that wind must have been bad. Not sure why the others didn't fall.

Thanks,
Depending on how many hives you have, it might not be a bad idea to invest in a few rachet belts to wrap your hives with.

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Scot Mc Pherson
Foundationless Small Cell Top Bar Hives
BeeWiki: http://linuxfromscratch.org/~scot/beewiki/
Here's the storm that come right over me yesterday.
http://www.extremeinstability.com/04-6-13.htm
Speaking of storms:

Micheal have you ever seen a hive that has been hit by lightning?

One of our club members brought one to the meeting yesterday and it looked like a bomb had went off in it, most of the brood was fried!
No, and I'm hoping I never do! Wow!

Yes that was three tornados. The pictures were taken two miles from my house and my house was in the path so I'm guessing they had to have touched down less than a mile from my house.
very, very cool video!

I have had covers blow off in high winds so I got some nylon straps with cam buckles (strapworks.com) It sure beats lifting those 40lb blocks off of each and every hive. (My hives are on stands so wraping them with straps was pretty easy.)
very, very cool video!

I have had covers blow off in high winds so I got some nylon straps with cam buckles (strapworks.com) It sure beats lifting those 40lb blocks off of each and every hive. (My hives are on stands so wraping them with straps was pretty easy.)
Both my hives blew over and got rainned into . They did survive and now short of a tornado they should stand the test . I staked on each side and have a rope across them with a locking pulley I found at Menard's .

Drifter
1 - 14 of 14 Posts
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