Raccoons & Feeder Buckets

[keeperofthebees]

Put an empty deep-hive body atop your inner cover, to protect your syrup bucket or jar from the raccoons!  Top the empty box around the jar with an inner cover and put a cinder block or heavy stone on top of that.  For good luck you can stuff some fibgerglass insulation around the jar(formaldehyde free fiberglass) to keep the hive warm all winter.  If you have to go into the barn and stack up syrup buckets a few times, it's time to strap them down with hog panels & bungee cords or rope-twine-etc.  It's a real pain having to stack up a few hundred buckets!!!

[LazyBkpr]

Coons are one of the few reasons I use ratchet straps on my hives..  depending on the time of year they are either a pain or a blessing.. fall/winter is the blessing time.. sitting in the window with the .22 waiting for them 12 dollar pelts to come to me 

[Riverrat]

Interesting I have never heard of anyone having coons bother a hive. I know skunks and bears do. Not sure what they would be after is it the bees or honey. If the hive is heavy and set level I wouldn't think the coon could get it knocked over. Has anyone else seen coons as a problem with there hives.

[riverbee]

yes keeper, that's what i do, and i also have to have an electric fence to keep the bears and other critters out.  if i move a hive out away from the protection of the fence, the hive/nuc is set on a pallet and ratchet strapped down.  it's really up to us to protect our hives from the marauders that may visit a hive.  i haven't had any problems with raccoons, more so the bears.

[keeperofthebees]

yes keeper, that's what i do, and i also have to have an electric fence to keep the bears and other critters out.  if i move a hive out away from the protection of the fence, the hive/nuc is set on a pallet and ratchet strapped down.  it's really up to us to protect our hives from the marauders that may visit a hive.  i haven't had any problems with raccoons, more so the bears.

a
Do you guys get alot of old telephone poles down there when the power companies come through and redo the lines?...  We use them up here in Wi for fence posts(corner posts), with the help of a chainsaw.  I was thinking about doing a thread on bear proofing the beeyard.  IF it works on a black bear(old rusty fence wire & poles), it ought to work to keep hive-tippers out.  I can't remember which beejournal issue it was, but I vaguely remember some place east of europe in the mountains on a cliff side, where a beekeeper built a big log-wood deck and covered the shack windows with old bed-springs & barbed wire to keep the bears out.