In this video on bear proofing your bee hive, we talk about ways to keep bears away from you beehives. The largest danger to our beehives are bears. They are very common here in NW CT and we don’t want them wrecking our beehives.
We read an article on bear proofing one’s hives in Bee Culture link here, by Ross Conrad, author of Natural Beekeeping, and have used a few of the bear proofing methods he wrote about for our hives.
We are in our sophmore year of beekeeping, and don’t purport to be experts on beekeeping yet, but we wanted to document our first years of beekeeping and share them with you all.
We have used this and other electric fences to bear proof the beeyard with good results. Your results may vary. Be very careful when dealing with bears. If there is one in your yard, get in the house, and get your dogs in the house too.
Full disclosure, Premier 1 supplies sent us the electric fence for free. I think its a good product.
Beekeepers: what methods do you use to safeguard your hives? let us know below
Lee Michaels
I really liked the idea of a solar fence. However, the one you demonstrated had to be one of the most expensive on the market. Amazon has several that would serve well. Protecting the relative small area does not require a unit designed to power 5 – 10 acres.
Eric Gunnar Rochow
we like the Premiere 1 fence because it has good power, dissuades bears, and the solar panel and charger box is really well made of heavy duty metal. i think it looks like something you could send into space. thx, eric.
Curt
I was looking at another site on bear proofing the hive and it looks like you made a fundamental error. The solar powered unit should be inside the fence to keep it out of harms way too. Food for thought.
Eric
@Curt, i can see it working both ways. Bears don’t seek out the fence charger, they just try to get through the fence.