Natural Beekeeping International Forum

[jeffo]

Three out of five hives at my off-site apiary have made it through the winter so I thought I would have a quick look today to see how they are getting on.

There were piles of leaves under the roof, on top of the bars, along with dried grass and hazel nut shells. I don't remember putting those in!




Hang on, what's that tail shape in the centre?





...and who is that at the top, near the edge of the leaves, watching me?


Mice! Five or six of the critters made a dash for freedom while others dived into the hive and a couple of dull ones tried to hide back in the nest.

Finally cleared them all and discovered that their winter hobbies include whittling top bars and leaving little parcels of poo:





The bees didn't seem to mind the mice dashing about but weren't too happy with me sweeping up the mess so they sent out a few of the girls to insist I stop.

Quite persuasive they were and I now have the first two stings of the 2014 season.

[madasafish]

The eaves of my hives overlap the sides, the roof is full of kingspan and the kingspan sits of top of the bars, thus leaving no warm spaces for mice, or wasps, or anything apart from the odd spider. We live on the edge of woods/fields with lots of mice (our garage has occasional mice occupants though!)