My husband is thinking of taking on bees keeping. Has anyone experience with ducks and bees? Can they be kept close to each other? We are in the mountains and have to build a building to keep them and the ducks in at winter. Two separate rooms of course. I figured building a 20x20 garage type building. 10x10 for the ducks, 10x10 for the bees, and 10x20 for storage. We already started to cultivate some clover on our land.
I do not know about ducks but Guineas will devour bees just like any other insect. To be on the safe side you may fence off ducks several feet from the beehive where the bees land and take off all thet time.
The hives will be all over the 22 acre property and away from the ducks. Just in winter they would be in the same house, but separate rooms.
Quote:i think it would be ok but my ducks do eat bees along with any other bugs. and make sure that the duck dont get stung.
I don't think that the ducks and bees will be any problem. I see a potential for problems in the winter when you move the hives into the building. Several times during the winter when the temps get above freezing, the bees will leave the hive for a "cleansing" flight-i.e. in order to defecate. If they are in an enclosed building they may become disoriented and refuse to reenter the hive. If they have been oriented to the building prior to winter, it may work.
You have a point, I forgot about the location change thing. That doesn't go well with bees, does it? I may have to build the hives into the wall of the house so they can go as pleased. I have seen that in Germany. It's actually quite nice to have it that way. It still gets serviced from the outside, but you provide sugar water from the inside. Quite honest I don't know to much about bees, just what I have read and seen. Never had any myself. They are supposed to be rather easy to take care off. There is a club in town, and I will have to hook up with them. So far all I know is that bee mites are not an issue up here. We don't even have ticks or fleas either. My husband want them, because so many hives are dying. He calls it preservation of the species. Good point. I also craft with bees wax (ornaments and candles), and this means I no longer have to go and buy it.
I've been thinking about keeping bees for a while too. I'd love to add honey and honey made products etc. to my dream of a roadside stand. I found a place online where you can get everything you need to set up a couple of hives, Including the boxes, smokers, clothes, gloves, veil etc all for one price in one package. I'm seriously considering this venture for next year. The bees and ducks wont really be near each other, but the ducks do free range in the day and I've seen my ducks jump up and snatch a HUGE horse hornet out of the air and devour it stinger and all like it was nothing. Snakeman thinks I'm crazy, but I really do want to keep bees.
I am interested in helping the bee's survive and of course enjoy the many gift they give in return, My duck do eat bee's so I would assume the further away they are the better. I know it makes since to "share" a space as in the same home in winter, But maybe consiter making two different shelters just so they have less chance of crossing paths, just a thought. Good luck keep us posted!
Quote:I think you will find cleaning honey combs to produce reasonable clean bee's wax to be a 'hard task' but the bee keeper's club may know some tricks that I don't! In the East moving bee hives is fairly routein, our keepers usually earn more money renting them out to pollunate crops than they get for the honey or wax. With the drastic decline in the wild bee population many farmers are glad to to pay for their service. They are usually moved at night when most bees are in the hive. Winter base is usually in a sheltered grove of trees or high bushes to give some shelter from the wind and weather close enough so the keeper can keep an eye on them and provide sugar water feedings if needed. No one I know of keeps them in a building, I once asked a keeper about that and he gave a explantion that boils down to that bees use the sun to keep their orientation and if they don't have natural sunlight when they leave the hive they don't find their way back to the hive (this is also the explantion given as to how bees find the way back to a hive that may have been moved several miles overnight. They note their location when they leave the hive and can always find their way back.) It would be a good idea to check this out with the local club before you build your "hive house".
Katherine, way back when I kept bees there was a book called "The ABC and XYZ of Beekeeping"- it was great. There are probably newer better books, but that one was my bible. Also there was a monthly magazine called "Gleanings in Bee Culture." That may still exist.
