hi ward,
hmmm, trying to figure this out, what you did here.......do you have a voltmeter? to measure the volts coming off the tape?
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We purchased a yellow jacket electric fence kit to place around our hive. This is powered by a 12 volt marine deep cycle battery. How do you keep the battery charged? We purchased a solar battery charger. The attached picture shows our set upa few questions and comments....
did you leave a battery in the yellow jacket unit?
which battery are you trying to charge?
what is the solar panel hooked up to?
batteries in solar units are charged by the solar panel. the yellow jacket comes with a battery, that needs recharging from time to time, or switch it out with another to keep a charge on the fence, while the other is being charged with a small charger. i am not familiar with whether or not the yellow jacket can be charged with a solar panel or not.
your 12 volt marine battery, you should keep this covered.
keep your ground rod/s wet
the yellow jacket by itself, (my understanding of them) does not put out enough voltage to keep bears out, you need no less than 7,000 volts or above 0.75 joules to detour or shock a bear.
i would get a volt meter and measure the voltage coming off all 4 poly tape. if it is less than 7,000 volts, i would be concerned.
to what rob said, with your set up, i would bait the poly tape, and i would use strips of aluminum foil wrapped on and slobbered up with peanut butter. what a bear will do, without it, is go right through the poly tape. with the strips of peanut butter on, a bear will bite or try to lick off the peanut butter strips, and bam! shock!......
here is a thread with some good info on bear fencing, i have several posts there with some good info and great pdf files:
Fenced Enclosurei hope this helps you......
just not sure what you have going is going to stop a bear, just my HO.....