Well I guess we just got lucky last year. The word is out in the bear community…the Glazers’ have bee hives…let’s go there for dinner. And come they did..ate the honey and destroyed the hive. Very messy and not in the least bit considerate diners. Two nights in a row the hive was set upon. We got lucky however since the queen was not killed. These little buggers are so smart…the queen was on the ground so the workers formed a mound over her to protect her. Ed was able to retrieve her and put her back in the very mangled hive. After the second night of being invaded our good friend Yuval came and took the queen and her entourage to one of his hives and fostered them.
So Ed had to make the decision of whether or not to continue to be a beekeeper or give it up to the bears. He decided if he gave into the bears then what next. So it was off to New Hampshire to the fencing company to purchase an electric fence with energy enough to zap a bear. We were assured by the fence people that this would work and we should set it up before putting the hive inside the fence. They suggested we hang bacon on the fence to attract the bears so their nose would touch the fence first and get zapped. This would result in the bear being frightened off never to return. So we did indeed set up the fence and put the bacon on the fence and sure enough the bacon hanging there became too much to ignore and so Ernie and Hawkeye (our two Golden Retrievers) learned not to go near the bees. As for the bears…so far we have not seen hide nor hair of them. So the hive is back in its place and seems to be thriving and the bees are doing a fantastic job of pollinating my gardens.
So that should answer the question and we now can dream of eating apples and honey in September. What a sweet thought!!
So Ed had to make the decision of whether or not to continue to be a beekeeper or give it up to the bears. He decided if he gave into the bears then what next. So it was off to New Hampshire to the fencing company to purchase an electric fence with energy enough to zap a bear. We were assured by the fence people that this would work and we should set it up before putting the hive inside the fence. They suggested we hang bacon on the fence to attract the bears so their nose would touch the fence first and get zapped. This would result in the bear being frightened off never to return. So we did indeed set up the fence and put the bacon on the fence and sure enough the bacon hanging there became too much to ignore and so Ernie and Hawkeye (our two Golden Retrievers) learned not to go near the bees. As for the bears…so far we have not seen hide nor hair of them. So the hive is back in its place and seems to be thriving and the bees are doing a fantastic job of pollinating my gardens.
So that should answer the question and we now can dream of eating apples and honey in September. What a sweet thought!!
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