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biggles

House Bee
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Location
Tunbridge wells Kent uk
Hive Type
National
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loads
Had a fun morning with a herd of cows escaping into the road. While putting them back I found this
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A wasp nest but what dug them out. Could it be the badgers?

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What would dig a wasp nest out and why?

Ta

Pete
 
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Hi Pete
Badgers it is :iagree:
After the larvea

Grub
 
Looks like the work of a badger yes and protein would be the why.

PH
 
There was a link yesterday to a report on badgers digging out bumble nests because their usual scran, earthworms, are too hard to get out of the baked soil. This looks just like what the badgers had done to the poor old bumbles.
 
Ooooo, good question! Seems the damage done is from digging things out though, but then again, I'm no expert. Be interesting to see what people of experience have to say :)
 
I know Paul had badgers attack his chickens and kill a load of them. I think they left his bees alone.

My bees are only 150meters from the wasps nest. Is it time to panic :willy_nilly:

Pete
 
Get rid of the wasps! Before they find your hives and start robbing them out!!!

We stake our hives around the BB and round the hive roof to floor to stop anything tipping them over including badgers.

Good luck I hate waps grr!
 
In some places badgers will attack bee hives. If you have badgers around the best thing is not to leave bits of comb around as that is just asking for trouble.

G.

PS Just think yourself lucky that your beekeeping isn't disturbed by these fellows:

http://www.honeybadger.com/

 
I know Paul had badgers attack his chickens and kill a load of them. I think they left his bees alone.

My bees are only 150meters from the wasps nest. Is it time to panic :willy_nilly:

Pete

I am likely to be moving bees to a spot where I know there are badgers- I'm intending to put wire netting round them and cross my fingers
 
I would make sure you don't put your hives along a badger run - you can usually see the trails in the grass. Do you mean wire netting as in fence? Cause badgers will easily dig under. You would be better to stake them and have the hive parts very firmly secured together. You could use a wire fence to persuade them away, but not on their normal trail. They are creatures of habit and if their usual route is blocked they are very persistent at digging under. I once saw a maize field where the farmer had tried to block them out by putting in a fence sunk into the ground. The badgers did not even bother going round, they just started digging from well back and came up about 8 feet into the field. So find out where they are running and avoid.
I am pretty sure that it is badgers diigging out wasps that cause us to have early infestations of wasps round here. When the nests get dug out the queens may get killed and the surviving wasps have no purpose so stop hunting insects and start looking for sugar and honey.
 
Thanks Geoff that explains why my bees are under such an attack from wasps.

Last night I went looking for wasps nest and found four (I've already killed off two) I sprayed them with wasp spray and this morning it looks like only a few survived. I'll go and spray again tonight.

Thought the badges were going to be my friends but ..........

Pete
 
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I am currently looking after a hive in a garden that has a regular badger visitor, after the first instance when it knocked the hive to pieces (luckily empty) it pays little interest, I do have it straped down however onto a lump of concrete in the ground via straps very little it could do now apart from rip it to pieces. but think it still goes right past it most days!
 
I watched a doc on the honey badger years ago, it was funny watching it sticking it's snout into the combs with the bees buzzing around it's head, it's little eyes blinking away but still persevering. Not funny if it's your hive, but very interesting to watch, and great that it is on film. Must have been being stung to high heaven, but that honey must have tasted sooooooo good lol
 
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