Apiary vandalism / animal rights

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Most reports of trees falling in apiaries more often show how the hives had a close escape. The thorough level of destruction suggests vandalism.
This past winter I had a tree fall near one of my hives. Missed it by about 6 feet apparently. By the time I visited the site the gardeners had removed it and tidied up.
Another hive was visited by a horse. Again I didn't witness this but was able to see the fence broken and a pile of manure next to the hive.
Fortunately the hive was OK.
And a few years ago my hives were visited by a cow. Apart from some movement of the roof all was OK.
On all these occasions I was lucky, but I can imagine that if one hive had been knocked over the bees would have reacted which in turn would frighten the animal thus resulting in a lot of damage to the apiary.
Horses, cows, deer, all very strong animals.
Just saying..
 
How can lentil knitters want to smash a beehive? That's literally animal cruelty.
when has logic ever entered their argument? lookat the environmental carnage they caused when they released all those coypu - and mink are till causing damage to our wildlife
 
How can lentil knitters want to smash a beehive? That's literally animal cruelty.
I wouldn't look for signs of intelligence where there are none.

I received death threats back in the 90's because where I work we produce bespoke medicines a lot of which are intended to treat paediatric patients. A bunch of animal nut jobs took it into their heads that we had to be testing on animals which we weren't and never had.

Bit of a strange turn of events. Went to a fancy dress hire store some years later (no not for a velutina suit) which as it turns out was being run by someone I went to school with. Out of the blue without prompting they confided that they had been a serious animal activist (not that they admitted anything) up until they watched their father painfully wither away from cancer afterwhich their world view changed and would have sacrificed any animal to save their father from the ordeal he went through!
 
Having watched a video posted by a member where one of their sites appears to have been vandalised.
I have a love-hate relationship with youtube. The cringe videos from grey molehill honey are definitely in the hate category, so much so I blocked them from appearing in my suggestions a year or so ago. But it was still pretty obvious to me who had posted the video you were referring to.

Posted last night in the comments by the video's author:

Turns out it was a tree! Two massive conifer trees in fact. The landowners crew had removed them assuming I already knew but they had come down in a storm about two weeks ago and flattened everything. Makes sense. Still gutted!

Having watched the video and the one posted 2 months earlier filmed at the same site entitled "Huge fallen tree in my apiary", I struggle to see how you can come to any other conclusion than it was a fallen tree, or accidental damage from what must be huge machinery clearing up the trees. You can see broken tree stumps to the left of the big white container. Why didn't molehill honey, having identified the risk in the previous video, move his equipment out the way of what looks like substantial tree clearing taking place immediately adjacent to his site? The video from 2 months ago tells us that none of the hives contained bees.
 
I struggle to see how you can come to any other conclusion than it was a fallen tree, or accidental damage
I've also recently unsubbed.
My wife makes YouTube vids. So, I know it's all too easy to be sucked into the YT algorithm.
I find molehill's videos increasingly clickbaity. What's annoyed me the most is the amount of contradictory information that's put out in the vids, in an absolute tone.
 
cringe videos from grey molehill honey
This I would like to see, but a search drew a blank, though I did get to listen to the gorgeous voice of Morgan Reese singing Honey, and a less rewarding Apostolic Brethren Spring Retreat Info video. Would you post a link, WH, so we can join you in pain?
 
This I would like to see, but a search drew a blank, though I did get to listen to the gorgeous voice of Morgan Reese singing Honey, and a less rewarding Apostolic Brethren Spring Retreat Info video. Would you post a link, WH, so we can join you in pain?
Discussed vid here. I guess this means it's gone viral. Mission accomplished:
 
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Discussed vid here. I guess this means it's gone viral. Mission accomplished:

I think the mods edited your post to 'Mole Hill Honey' for a reason. Unfortunately, the way Youtube works requires a click baity nature to earn money. And no-one can argue that full time beekeepers couldn't use the extra money. He has some very useful videos, I am unsure why you are going out of your way to try to degrade his channel. Should I list every Youtube channel that I don't like? Is this how it is done? He is also a member here by the way.
 
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Not a great landowner who doesn't tell you that your hives have been damaged OR tell you when they are going to clear up. And a couple of new stumps and a load of chainsaw chips would be pretty obvious.
Click bait. Disappointing.
 
I think the mods edited your post to 'Mole Hill Honey' for a reason. Unfortunately, the way Youtube works requires a click baity nature to earn money. And no-one can argue that full time beekeepers couldn't use the extra money. He has some very useful videos, I am unsure why you are going out of your way to try to degrade his channel. Should I list every Youtube channel that I don't like? Is this how it is done? He is also a member here by the way.
Thank you Ely.

Appreciate the support :)

I am not one for getting back to negative messages but I am more than happy to provide further information here...

Click bait is when you post a thumbnail of Donald Trump being eaten by a shark and when you click on the video its a scantily clad female trying to sell you something!

My video title showed a picture of me, feeling sick after finding thousands of pounds worth of of damage in an apiary. I did feel sick. I still do. It's damaged a lot of equipment that I had planned to use this year.

I ran out of space and had to keep a fair bit of kit outside whilst maintenance in the forest was ongoing for anyone wondering why it was being stored there. It's well away from the active forestry work.

My opening line in the video says 'I think it's tree damage'. At least that's what I suspected as there were two snapped conifer trunks nearby but no felled trees anywhere near.

Having spoken to the landowner (of a 50 acre forest) to ask what had happened, he had no idea either. He spoke to the contractor carrying out the work and what had happened was upon their arrival to clear the fallen trees in the forest, they noticed two trees on my beehives and very kindly cleared it all up for me. Why didn't they tell the landowner? They assumed he knew. They just turned up to clear trees and there were fallen trees everywhere. Pretty much run of the mill job for them.

I am honestly not sure what is warranting the hatred here? What do I stand to earn from this video - well, I'll tell - £9.62 to date. Ill deduct that from the £2.5k damage to the hives and it looks likes I am quids in.


For anyone interested, I am giving the hives away if anybody wants to come and collect and is able to restore them. The bodies are ok (ish) but the roofs are knackered it seems having sat in mud for a good few weeks.

I'm not one for engaging with the haters. You can't keep everyone happy and when you keep Buckfast bees and some people like them black, there is no winning them around.

PS. Grey Molehill Honey. Love it. Soon to be appearing in a YouTube video. Thanks for the humour! ;)
 
Thank you Ely.

Appreciate the support :)

I am not one for getting back to negative messages but I am more than happy to provide further information here...

Click bait is when you post a thumbnail of Donald Trump being eaten by a shark and when you click on the video its a scantily clad female trying to sell you something!

My video title showed a picture of me, feeling sick after finding thousands of pounds worth of of damage in an apiary. I did feel sick. I still do. It's damaged a lot of equipment that I had planned to use this year.

I ran out of space and had to keep a fair bit of kit outside whilst maintenance in the forest was ongoing for anyone wondering why it was being stored there. It's well away from the active forestry work.

My opening line in the video says 'I think it's tree damage'. At least that's what I suspected as there were two snapped conifer trunks nearby but no felled trees anywhere near.

Having spoken to the landowner (of a 50 acre forest) to ask what had happened, he had no idea either. He spoke to the contractor carrying out the work and what had happened was upon their arrival to clear the fallen trees in the forest, they noticed two trees on my beehives and very kindly cleared it all up for me. Why didn't they tell the landowner? They assumed he knew. They just turned up to clear trees and there were fallen trees everywhere. Pretty much run of the mill job for them.

I am honestly not sure what is warranting the hatred here? What do I stand to earn from this video - well, I'll tell - £9.62 to date. Ill deduct that from the £2.5k damage to the hives and it looks likes I am quids in.


For anyone interested, I am giving the hives away if anybody wants to come and collect and is able to restore them. The bodies are ok (ish) but the roofs are knackered it seems having sat in mud for a good few weeks.

I'm not one for engaging with the haters. You can't keep everyone happy and when you keep Buckfast bees and some people like them black, there is no winning them around.

PS. Grey Molehill Honey. Love it. Soon to be appearing in a YouTube video. Thanks for the humour! ;)
The Mods were keeping an eye on it .. in places it was straying over the ethos of the forum but as the vast majority of members would have had no idea who the 'victim' was it was left. On personal level I rather felt a few people were adding 2 and 2 and coming up (unjustifiably) with 5. Glad you posted and put the matter to rest - I feel your pain, that's a lot of damage even if they were stored kit.
 
Click bait is when you post a thumbnail of Donald Trump being eaten by a shark and when you click on the video its a scantily clad female trying to sell you something!
That is a very narrow definition of clickbait. There are countless websites that discuss what is and isn't clickbait, for example Wikipedia do a pretty good job as always, but here is a simple guide: If your video thumbnail involves pointing or unnatural facial expressions that wouldn't look out of place in a 200 year old lithograph by Louis-Leopold Boilly, then you are probably in the business of producing clickbait videos.

040b66e99bddf0a163f22010c8df39de9bae5e42.jpg
 
That is a very narrow definition of clickbait. There are countless websites that discuss what is and isn't clickbait, for example Wikipedia do a pretty good job as always, but here is a simple guide: If your video thumbnail involves pointing or unnatural facial expressions that wouldn't look out of place in a 200 year old lithograph by Louis-Leopold Boilly, then you are probably in the business of producing clickbait videos.

View attachment 39151
Jeez. If you are going to reference a website for a definition at least read what it says before inserting it on an online forum. But you are right, Wikipedia does do a pretty good job of explaining what clickbait is.

WIKIPEDIA: Clickbait is a text or a thumbnail link that is designed to attract attention and to entice users to follow ("click") that link and read, view, or listen to the linked piece of online content, being typically deceptive, sensationalized, or otherwise misleading.[2][3][4] A "teaser" aims to exploit the "curiosity gap", providing just enough information to make readers of news websites curious, but not enough to satisfy their curiosity without clicking through to the linked content. Clickbait headlines often add an element of dishonesty, using enticements that do not accurately reflect the content being delivered.[5][6]
 
probably in the business of producing clickbait videos.
@warsaw_hive
Leave this alone now please. It’s getting personal.
Laurence runs a perfectly honest informative and popular beekeeping website and YouTube channel.
 
Excellent YouTube live question and answer session from Laurence yesterday. Picked up quite a few tips.
 
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