Keeping Guineas and Bees

[flyingdragon]

Anyone with experience keeping guineas and bees? I'd like to have a few hives but I understand guineas will seek and devour the bees. What's the best approach? Will they wipe out all the local bees even if I don't have hives?

 

[CoopCrazy]

Good questions .. I am curious to see what others have to say..

 

[Akane]

I'd fence the hives themselves but otherwise it's not a problem. They shouldn't eat enough to do any real damage unless you have a very large number of guinea fowl, not enough other stuff for them to eat, and a small number of bees.

 

[flyingdragon]

Hmmm. I've got 29, a mob. You should see them when I let them out in the morning. If they range out a distance I'll be OK. It's just that in the spring the white clover is in abundance and along come the honeybees. An enclosure for the hives sounds like the way to go. Thanks!

 

[Cacklin" Hens]

I have personally seen 10 guineas almost wipe out a hive of bees (my freind's)!! So I told her to put up a fence around the hive boxes and that way the guineas couldn't get to stand on top of the box or on the ground and eat them on their way out. The two (the guineas and the bees) are happily flourishing now that she put up the fence around the hive boxes. Hope this helps! Hope this helps!

 

[barefootchef]

Quote:
If the bees are out and about and the guinea's are around, they can snack on the bees. The only way an enclosure helps the bees is to keep the guinea's away from the hive body.

 

[Akane]

Bees are going to be scattered when away from the hive even if there is an area of flowers attracting the majority and they will be flying about so odds of guineas eating all of them becomes pretty low. We have tons of bees here and part of the year they all collect on this one ground cover under a tree. We added guineas and chickens who spend half their time trying to eat them. We still have tons of bees here and even a hive of yellow jackets right across from the coop last year. Letting guineas near the hive they can slurp them down one right after the other and possibly even damage your hives so I would not be surprised if people lost bees that way. I would be surprised if people had entire hives wiped out when the guineas are fenced off from them.

 

[Lunawriter]

Oh, I'm so glad I saw this. I'm planning to get both bees and guineas this summer. Good to know

 

[rhoda_bruce]

I have been hot after an idea my husband showed me years ago relating to having bees in a swamp. The hives were very high up on a platform, thus protecting them from high waters, which from time to time can come in helpful here. I am thinking in regards to the guineas I will be getting in June, that I can have the hives up high like that and put an arbor over the garden, to protect the birds from preditors, I would also protect the bees from the guineas.
The chickens seem afraid of the bees, but I'm not sure what the guineas will do to them. I might very well fence in the bees for a while. I'm pretty sure I can do a real quick set up with 2 or 3 fence poles and about 8 feet of 2X4 wire I can remove at will.