Tree House Beehive

[For want of a better word]

SWMBO has decided we need a couple of pigs to dig up all the weeds etc at the bottom of the orchard.... now that is where my garden bees are kept!

Thinking out loud.... what if I built a tree house apiary and got them a couple of fathoms off the ground... the beehives that is?

( ancient Cornish mining measurement 1 fathom = 6 feet... that is 6 inches under 2 meters for the metricated amongst us!)

 

[Black Comb]

It will be a lot easier to erect a fence.

 

[Skyhook]

First thing I would say is- think very carefully about the pigs. If you have them among the trees they will kill the trees- eat the bark and chew the roots- and while they will certainly eat the weeds, what they will create, if more than 1 or 2 to the acrea, is a bare mud patch. We have 3 mini-pigs at work, and the speed with which they destroy an area of grass is astonishing to behold.

 

[justme]

It will be a lot easier to erect a fence.

Yes but it will need to be strong one and I think a treehouse apiary sounds fun. Also bees in trees dont live on the ground do they?

Icanhopit, how high were you looking to go? Might be an issue moving them, steps of 3'.

 

[MrB]

what if I built a tree house apiary and got them a couple of fathoms off the ground... the beehives that is?

Could make for interesting inspections!

 

[rae]

Yes. Borrow some pigs if you need weed clearance, but permanent pigs will turn your orchard into the Somme in short order. The previous owner of our place kept pigs, and they trashed several 200 year old oaks. Apple trees don't stand a chance against scratchy and rooting pigs.

 

[Bee-Key-Pur]

Yep the pigs will eat everything, including the roots to the apple trees and that will be the end of your orchard, then they will eat you out of house and home, after all, they are pigs. Plus you will need a holding number from Defra to keep them.
It might be easier and cheaper to buy a new garden....

 

[Headnavigator]

Geese?

 

[Travelator]

Pigs can indeed be very destructive, but you don't have to keep them forever. Once the ground is cleared and they get too big, simply eat them (although NB this is quite a complicated procedure and requires suitable transport to get them to slaughter).

Poultry is much better for weed clearance IMO - easier to move around, and will not remove mature trees.

 

[Gardenbees]

Poultry is much better for weed clearance IMO - easier to move around, and will not remove mature trees.

Get some nice hens - they'll raze most vegetation to the bare earth after they've been scratching around for a bit. You'll have very happy hens, very few weeds, nice eggs, reasonably safe trees, and safe hives. Bonus: they'll eat up any dead bees that are lying around which might otherwise encourage wasps and other robbers. They may also discourage ground-dwelling wasp nests.

Pigs are lovely but a headache in a small area - even just one idyllic pig in a small orchard can churn everything to bits as soon as the weather gets wet. And I mean bits - absolutely everything goes. Plus, the usual farm paperwork applies, also vet bills, human and pig hygiene precautions, and the headache of finding a suitable abattoir.

I still rather like the idea of a bee-tree-house though, pigs or no pigs!

 

[The Cumbrian]

I would endorse most of the comments about pigs they do turn the ground into a sea of mud. However they don't always kill trees I kept a series of sows in an enclosure with a couple of trees over a 30 year period the trees survived. The Gloucester Old Spot was known as an "orchard pig" because that is where many were kept in the old days.

However the disadvantages of pigs as a ground clearer out weigh IMO the advantages. When they are on heat they will try (and very possibly succeed) to break out looking for a boar. The paper work has been mentioned but what many "garden" pig owners don't realise is that to move the animal on to or off your property you need a movement license (at least you did when I last kept pigs 10 years ago). On the subject of slaughter when I last kept pigs we had to take them about 40 miles past 2 slaughter houses to find one that could/would deal with them.

To just keep the grass short I would go for geese as suggested or to reduce it to bare earth but not a battlefield hens with a high stocking rate.

 

[milkermel]

see below

 

[milkermel]

chickens or maybe goats?? Pigs really do devistate - my father in law had a couple to clear a field full of gorse and bramble - they cleared it very quickly. might be worth you looking at some ross hubbard table birds as well as some layers - that way once growth is down you can thin out numbers for sunday roast??

having said which if you do put the bees in the trees you could get a zip wire as well for those times when a quick escape is needed

 

[northernsoul]

An artificial swarm would be fun!

 

[Gardenbees]

having said which if you do put the bees in the trees you could get a zip wire as well for those times when a quick escape is needed

Now *that* is something that would be fun to watch - exit beekeeper at top speed, pursued through the air by a cloud of angry bees!
"gotta go, ladies"!!

 

[VEG]

I spend a lot of time in trees with my job. I would not recommend putting hives in trees.

 

[For want of a better word]

Our Oxfords have just gone off for sausage and bacon in our community orchard... half dozen piggies did an excellent job of clearing the land that was sloping land with willow and eucalyptus .Paperwork is not so tenuous, in reality it is finding somewhere safe for my hives and a tree apiary seemed such a good idea!

Is vertical and horizontal position correlated! |I could see the bees looking for home below the hive!!

 

[greatbritishhoney]

Agree with all of the above but would say that pigs can be kept away from trees if you erect a reasonably sturdy fence around each tree.
If it was me I would probably put up a small electric fence around the hives rather than put them high up. I once put a bait hive on a shed roof - it nearly killed me trying to get it down again (and it was empty!).

 

[meetballuk]

did you ever build this tree house ?
has anyone?

 

[Beeforest]

Pigs that were kept on Orchards to hoover up the windfall apples were generally ringed to stop them digging up the trees' roots.
Not many people want to ring pigs nowadays and rightly so!