Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: jeremy_c on June 14, 2009, 10:15:23 pm

Title: Bat Houses and Bee Hives?
Post by: jeremy_c on June 14, 2009, 10:15:23 pm

I am curious if they can coexist or will their times of activity intermingle and thus the bats clean up the bees as well as mosquitoes?

Jeremy

Title: Re: Bat Houses and Bee Hives?
Post by: Natalie on June 14, 2009, 11:39:24 pm

I don't have bat houses but there are bats living in the trees in the back of my yard.
I see them flying over when I hang out around the campfire at night but its always well after the bees are back in the hives.
Bats do not come out until after dusk and I have no concerns over them affecting the bees.
In fact, although they may come out earlier I never see them until 9:00 or 10:00 at night.
Who knows, they may even eat insects that are a threat to the bees. At least they keep the mosquito population under control which is so important with the fatal viruses some of the mosquitos are carrying now.
I think they are perfectly able to co exist.

Title: Re: Bat Houses and Bee Hives?
Post by: Cheryl on June 15, 2009, 12:11:10 am

I have bats and bees. Their paths don't cross. Everything is fine in their little worlds.

Title: Re: Bat Houses and Bee Hives?
Post by: luvin honey on June 15, 2009, 10:34:46 am

We built bat houses this year, along with hives, to help grow our local bat population. Bats are nocturnal, so I can't imagine a situation where they would eat bees. But, I sure hope they take care of cabbage moths, sweetcorn moths and mosquitos!! :D

Title: Re: Bat Houses and Bee Hives?
Post by: achunter on June 15, 2009, 11:03:58 am

I also have a bat house and i figured I have the bees doing well on the day shift by pollinating flowers and i have the bats doing well on the night shift by eating mosquito's and things of that sort,  i have never seen the bats out while be bees were still out so there is no problem with that 

Title: Re: Bat Houses and Bee Hives?
Post by: Eshu on June 15, 2009, 03:52:27 pm

The bat houses I've built don't have the space the bees like for swarms.  I have built houses using this book by Bat Conservation International (see link):

http://www.batcatalog.com/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=193

As for coexisting, as others have said they aren't active at the same time so no problem.

Title: Re: Bat Houses and Bee Hives?
Post by: Rebel Rose Apiary on June 15, 2009, 04:36:15 pm

I found a small bat inside of a swarm trap once! The kind of swarm trap that they offer in the supply catalogs. I let him/her go and moved the trap....then someone stole the trap!  :? I now make my own swarm traps and have never had any bats enter into them.

I have quite a few bats flying aorund at night. A few of the smaller bats come out earlier than the larger bats and I have seen a few bees around while the bats were out. The bees are just the last forager bees coming in for the night and I never seen a bat bother them before.

There is my 2 cents worth.

Brenda