Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: me262 on July 02, 2004, 10:24:01 am

Title: How to prevent swallows from attacking my bees
Post by: me262 on July 02, 2004, 10:24:01 am

Hi people,


I have a new problem.

Some swallow made their nests near my appiary and now they are attaking my bees, in the air, even making low flying attacks near the hives.

Do you have any ideas about how to prevent such attacks?


Thanks

Title: How to prevent swallows from attacking my bees
Post by: leominsterbeeman on July 02, 2004, 03:01:39 pm

How about one of plastic owls,  I sure you could get then at a
garden shop.
 

If there are eggs in the nests, then they may not be moving on.

Title: How to prevent swallows from attacking my bees
Post by: Anonymous on July 03, 2004, 10:13:18 am

Plastic owls can also be got at sporting goods stores that caters to varmit hunters.
Try putting a bird net up between the hives and the swallows nest. Might even work to make a roof system with the bird net over the hives. Again look for the bird nets at garden centers.
 :D Al

Title: How to prevent swallows from attacking my bees
Post by: me262 on July 11, 2004, 05:19:15 pm

Thanks for your replies guys.


The problem is growing, and growing.
In fact it's the first time that we are having this problem with the swallows, and I don't want to get radical and pickup the shotgun to solve the issue.

The nests are far away from the apiary, and it's forbidden to destroy their nests or eggs..
I already noticed that they come from far away, to feed their juveniles from the bees.
Today I saw about eight different swallows attacking the bees.

I'm going to try to find the plastic owls or plastic falcons.
The idea of building a roof with birds net it's really nice, the problem being the extension of the structure. With ten hives, the area it's already a bit large.

But we must do something about them.

Thanks for your help.