Jersey Cape Bee Keepers Association

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Friday, March 12, 2010

I had noticed that my entrance reducer was removed on several mornings. Noticing scratches on the wood, I determined that a raccoon or skunk was pulling the reducer away and scraping dead bees off the bottom board for a late nite snack. Today, I wrapped the hive with garden fencing I had left over from last year. It came in a roll, so I just unrolled it around the hive and secured it to itself. My hive is on a hive stand, so that should hold the fencing about 6 inches from the front of the hive. We'll see if this takes care of the problem.

3 comments:

  1. I had a similar incident. I have artificial pollen on a board inside a bucket near the hive. Yesterday I noticed the pollen was gone - The bees don't seem to bother with it. Several times before the board was pulled out and the pollen dumped. I thought maybe squirrels were etting curious.

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  2. That night be it also, Ed. I noticed this morning that the entrance reducer was removed again but the fencing was not disturbed, so whatever it is it's not effected by the wire. Maybe it's a mouse. I put a mouse trap on the landing board, so see what happens now.

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  3. Good luck with that, Jerry...
    I have skunks and raccoons too but so far didn't have that problem and I do have a little pile of dead bees as they clean out the hive daily. Maybe because my hives are higher... I have them about 2 feet off the ground. You have seen the pix...

    PS... when you post a comment what Profile do you use? I use the Google one and my posts are not automatic... sometimes it takes awhile to post and I think it didn't go thru and them I repost only to have 2 later... then I delete one... anyone else have this problem? Gary

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