Bears in the Beehives

Bears in the beehives–what’ll I do?
Bears in the beehives, what’ll I do?
Bears in the beehives, what’ll I do?

The best defense — use common sense
It’s time to build a ‘lectric fence.

“The party’s over.” That’s what I told my wife, Yanna. We knew bears were in the neighborhood, but up until that warm night this summer they had left our bees alone. At first when I saw the toppled hive I thought I had stacked the supers too high. But there were two hives toppled and a couple of supers were broken and dragged into the woods. This was more than gravity. It was BEARS!

So I soon found myself at the hardware store buying parts for a solar-powered electric fence and acquiring fence installation training. Let’s hope its electrical jolt is more of a bear deterrent than those bee stings!

Bees require constant vigilance these days to deter the mites, diseases, and other pests. Up till now most of our pests have been tiny.

It’s getting more and more expensive to keep bees. Amazingly, the price of honey is only just starting to rise. One of our bee club members had his honey for sale for $15 a quart. A customer came up to him and she complained that his price seemed little high. Couldn’t he give her a better price?

He said, “Would you rather I sell it to you for what I have in it?”

“Yes,” she said, “how much would that be?”

“$37.50” he replied.

BUZZOLOGY SPECIAL!

I’ve been keeping bees as well as writing, singing, and telling stories about bees (and lots of other things) for years. Each of these three items has some kind of bee adventure within and they are all on sale till the end of September. Go to my Products Page here.

Wildwoods Wisdom, Encounters with the Natural World (hardcover) $18 ($5 off)
Sail On, Honeybee, Adventures in the Bee Yard (CD) $10 ($5 off)
Swarm Tree, Of Honeybees, Honeymoons, and the Tree of Life (paperback) $15 ($3 off)

FREEBEE LINKS :

Honeybee Fly Around Song Todd at age 13 singing about honeybees and dancing around (and on) the bee hives.

Poplar Appeal – UNC-TV Celebrating the tulip poplar tree as a source of honey, baskets, and many other things.