Grin & it...: There's more tkan one wau to beat a bear

摘要

Few honey bee predators can elicit a level of fear and trepidation in a beekeeper as much as a bear. Be it black, brown or of the grizzly variety, a bear can reduce a tall, well-organized, proud hive into a chaotic mess of splintered wood, mangled combs, and dead bees very quickly. In general, bears live in wooded areas and tend not to wander around too much in open fields, especially where there is a lot of human activity. Bear problems can be especially acute during Autumn when bears in northern climates are feeding heavily in preparation for Winter hibernation. One of the earliest forms of protecting an apiary from bears was to use a physical enclosure of some kind, such as a stone wall. The inside of the wall would contain recessed areas, in which woven skep hives (also called "bee boles") could be placed. Today, permanent fences, such as those made of chain link fencing, may enclose an apiary in order to provide bear protection. A common alternative popular in our modern society and for thoselooking for a movable, or temporary solution, is the electric fence. Photo voltaic technology allows self-charging solar-electric fences to be set up in hard to reach remote locations. Some beekeepers recommend hanging a slice of bacon from one of the hot wires so that when a bear first approaches the fence, they will tend to reach out and touch the bacon with either their nose or their tongue. The idea being that by initially touching the electric fence with one of these two sensitive and wet parts ofits anatomy, the resulting shock will be painful enough to prevent the bear from continuing to harbor any curiosity about what is beyond the fence.