# How Dangerous are Bees?



## SD2522 (May 26, 2009)

I honestly do not see much threat of bees at all, especially if they are any distance away. Just my opinion, I would keep them out of sight/out of mind as much as possible, especially if you have neighbors which you arent sure how they will react and your relationship with them.


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

I've spoken to my neighbors on each side of me, and one had no problem - having grown up in farmland himself. The other seemed more hesitant, but said "I don't think it'll be a problem".

I just want to have the best idea of what I might have to deal with.

Adam


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Well, you could get bee fever. There is almost no cure, once you really get it. So bee careful. 

People are more of threat to bees than bees are to people. Very few are really alergic, but many are ignorantly afraid, almost beyond reason at times.


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## AllTek (Apr 22, 2009)

Hi Adam,
Your Grandpa sounds like my kinda guy. Your concerns are warranted but there are a few things you can do to prevent encounters between people and your bees. First, put a piece of plywood against your chain link fence. Next, when you get your bees, face their entrance at the plywood about 1 to 2 feet away. This will force the bees to fly up as they leave the entrance (keeping bees from getting in the hair of your low traffic park travelers). The end result? People can't see your beehive as it's behind the plywood and the bees wont bother the people as their flight path will be above their heads as the bees orient themselves. Problem solved. Have a great time keeping your bees Adam.


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## bigeddie (Feb 19, 2008)

They may go to your neighbors hummingbird feeder for some sugar water but other than that I see no problem. I have only been stung when I go into my hives. I mow grass right next to the hives and they don't bother me at all,use the weed eater up against the hives with no protection and they leave me to my work and I leave them to theirs. 
I say go for it but maybe tell your neighbors your plan. I dont have neighbors but the hives are in my yard and no one has ever been stung but me as I mentioned above.
Good luck and God Bless.


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## Omie (Nov 10, 2009)

Adam,
I live on a 1/3 acre lot in our village.
Might I recommend that you buy some 5 or 6 foot wide lengths of burlap and attach them double thickness along the back chainlink fence, also put a couple of poles to extend the burlap out 90 degrees on either side of your hives. Leave 6 or eight feet space everywhere between your hives and the burlap 'screen' so you and the bees can move around the hives freely. 

The burlap will not only encourage the bees to fly UP and out when the leave the hive, but will also give the neighbors a slight sense of security (mostly psychological). Explain to them (if they ask) that the burlap screen helps direct the bees up and away from the neighboring properties as they come and go from their hive.
The burlap is also a handy windscreen in winter.

I assume your hive entrances are not facing the neighbors' property. Bees use a flight path straight out and then up when leaving the hive, and you don't want them crashing into your neighbor mowing his lawn. I've read that by the time a bee is fifteen feet from leaving the hive on its way to forage, it's already usually flying above head level. 

Do an internet search on "urban beekeeping" and you will find lots of great sites with terrific tips about keeping bees in densely populated areas.
Good luck!


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## cjmcharlotte (Aug 1, 2009)

I live in a planned suburban neighborhood and keep one hive on about a 1/2 acre. My hive is just past the end of my driveway, about 5 steps away, where we walk up and turn left to go into the back door. We check them out as we're coming and going to see if they are coming and going.

I have two small boys (3 and 7) and in two years the only time anyone besides me was stung was when my 3-year-old dragged the garden hose over to them for a drink. Well, my husband got stung on his calf while mowing but I grilled him about it until he admitted that he kept passing by closer and closer in front of the hive to see how close he could get before they took action. I file that under "asking for it". I mean, "scientific experiment."

I have no screen, no barrier, no fence and as I said their entrance faces our path up the driveway. They fly perpendicular to their entrance - everyone makes a hard right out of the front door and is up and away in no time. Sometimes if you're walking through the yard, they fly by your head on the way in for a landing but it's not like they want to hit you. And they don't. 

The only thing is that I've asked our neighbors not to bring their dog into our backyard because they seem to get agitated with a dog around. The other thing is that I have a pond across the street so they have plenty of water available and don't hang around our house or anyone else's for their supply.

My point is that I have no special anything for them and we live peaceably together. It seems scary to keep a hive in a neighborhood but it is not a big deal.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

To directly answer the question, if after 150 stings(about), i was starting to have some problems thinking, I would guess that 200 stings would be rather serious to the average person. So 1000 bees could really mess up 5 people, and 50,000 bees could handle 50*5 = 250 people. If my math is right, one hive could do a number(pun intended) on a couple of blocks worth of your neighbors. So we are back to the gun control "guns don't kill, people do" analogy. Maybe the better question is "How dangerous are your neighbors?" 

I have a hive on the back porch, on a scale, that you will hit with the back door, if you open it all the way. Another couple of hives are next to the garage "man" door. They make handy safe spots to rest hammers, wrenches, and other tools. The path from the house to the garage passes through all the flight paths. All the things they say not to do. I live with my bees, and they live with me. Choose your bees and neighbors wisely, and there will be no problems. 

Roland


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## giant pumpkin peep (Mar 14, 2009)

My neighbors don't even know I have bees. I have had a few close calls but I will tell them by giving them a bottle of honey from my hives, and then quickly take a picture of their pricless faces.


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

And what about swarming? Is it likely that I'll end up with a swarm hanging off the neighbor's car?

Adam


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## NasalSponge (Jul 22, 2008)

I think us urban beeks need to be on top of our game when it comes to swarm control....but yes if one swarms you could have that very situation. Since you have told your neighbors already, just have a heads up talk with them about swarms and tell them you will take care of any that may happen. I too live is a city neighborhood on a 1/4 acre lot, one neighbor knows the others do not.


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## Denninmi (Jul 1, 2009)

When I had up to 15 hives at a time on my suburban 2.2 acres back in the 1980s and early/mid 1990s, I only had two incidents of complaints about "your bees"

One was a man from behind my property who came and said "your bees" attacked him and his kids every time they went out their back door into their back yard. So, once I went over and killed the paper wasp nest hanging about 10 feet over his back deck in a tree, "my bees" suddenly stopped bothering him.

The other one was a guy about 1/4 mile down the road who said "your bees" were stinging him on his deck. Needless to say, this problem was resolved in the same manner when I killed the colony of yellowjackets living under the deck.

You have to handle these situations with tact and use them as an opportunity to educated people about bees and beekeeping.

In particular, I think its important to stress that bees will never just "attack" except within a few feet of the hive if being disturbed. A random bee sting only happens by accident when a person contacts a bee, such as walking barefoot through clover.


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## devdog108 (May 7, 2009)

The house we are in right now has just under an acre. 3 out of 4 neighbors "say" they are allergic to bees, but only one has an epi-pen. He did learn last year that no matter what he does, the bees will still be around. This was BEFORE he helped me catch a swarm of bees....Now, he is perfectly ok with them. It was just talking to him and letting him know what to expect. Everyone else in the neighborhood has stopped by and thanked me for the best gardens they have EVER had around here.....and this is just one hive.....so far!


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## beekeeper_sd (Oct 30, 2008)

We are commercial beekeepers, running around 2,000 hives. Our honey house sits one block off Main Street and in a direct route to our high school and grade school. We have never had any problems with the bees bothering our neighbors. In fact, most people like the bees and are fascinated by them. The best way to butter up your neighbors is to give them a bottle of honey. They will love you forever.


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## earthchild (Jun 30, 2009)

In my experience, I have done more worrying than needed. I have a privacy fence around my back yard, so no one notices the hives even though they know about them. I had one neighbor mention that my bees were over in his yard drinking water by the kids playset. After that, I put a dog dish in front of the hives filled with rocks and water. That way they could have water readily available rather than look for another source. This was SUPER helpful. Good luck --Selena


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## PCM (Sep 18, 2007)

For every one here saying " No Problem !! "

Please do a member search of this board, click community, click members,
search for the name mpetershant read his last few postings.

They can be very dangerous to some people, even us beekeepers !

Luckley para-medics did get to him in time.

PCM


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## mpetershat (Mar 22, 2009)

No problem UNLESS somebody close is allergic. I started my first hive this year, was stung a few times with no problems. Then 2 weeks ago I got stung by 2 bees and almost died. Went into shock. Paramedics found no pulse, 60/40 blood pressue. I am officially allergic. I would let my neighbors know in case somebody was allergic. They can be prepared.


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## Bens-Bees (Sep 18, 2008)

I live on 1/3rd acre in a col-de-sac that is chaulk full of kids. Not including my own there are 16 other kids that live in the col-de-sac. I put my bees out in front of my house and wrote BEES in nice big bold letters on the hives so that all my neighbors knew about them within about 48 hours.

The reaction from my neighbors has been that three of them have thanked me for keeping bees. I have not had any neighbor's express any kind of concern about them at all. So far, no one has been stung.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

It's like answering the question "How dangerous are dogs". Most of the time it's not a problem. Sometimes a hive gets hot, but you, the beekeeper, should find that out first and you should requeen or resolve the issue (skunks etc.).


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## Oldbee (Sep 25, 2006)

Eventually you will have to harvest your honey, which means removing the bees from the honey supers/boxes. Sometimes, hives will be 5-6 feet or more high, with heavy boxes. This should take place only once a year or two at most [late summer]. This can be a time when the bees may become most agitated,...and "disturb" your neighbors. Using a triangle escape board or fume board is better and less disturbing to the bees than just brushing them off the frames and trying to get them [honey frames] into another box without a lot of bees included. A video of a new beekeeper doing this with thousands of bees flying around was posted here,.. but I don't know the link now.

With only a few colonies this should not be a problem. Ocassionally you will have to,.. "go into a hive" quite extensively and examine many frames/boxes. Accidents happen, and you may drop a frame with many bees on it or tip a box over and the bees/*you* become more agitated than usual; these should be only rare occurances.


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## Bens-Bees (Sep 18, 2008)

PCM said:


> For every one here saying " No Problem !! "
> 
> Please do a member search of this board, click community, click members,
> search for the name mpetershant read his last few postings.
> ...



I searched but only came up with this thread... but yes, 3 in every 10,000 people are allergic to bee stings... about the same odds as people that have adverse reactions to vaccines... but I still consider both vaccines and bees to be safe.

There are only two times that you'll ever be without risk, before you're born, and after you're dead.


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## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

after all the nice smellin' response I sure do hate to stink up the place..

honeybee are legally defined as a wild creature (in the us of a) since they are not domesticated. they are wild things that you the beekeeper would like to keep in those pretty white boxes if possible. sigfried and roy love their cats... quite evidently their cats can still turn on them from time to time.

for most healthy folks it takes a huge number of stings to obtain a LETHAL dose of bee venom. seems like (if memory still serves) an average size person requires something like 1000+ stings before the dosage is large enough to cause problems. the real weakness in this argument is the word AVERAGE. 

1) although the girls are a nuicance to my neighbors (I would guess) as some one suggested here a bit of honey makes their presence more tolerable.

2) if you work the girls at appropriate times and with appropriate gear (some has been discussed on this thread already so I will not go there) you can minimize the problem greatly.

3) other animals and small children can represent a problem. how you locate the hive in relationship to your property can help to minimize this problem.

I suspect as a general rule beekeepers tend to overlook the problems attached to honeybees. when the beekeeper confronts his first serious lethal event in regards to his own bees whether the stinging victim is human or animal his sensitivity to this issue changes somewhat.... or at least that is how it worked for me.


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## JonEdangerousli (May 8, 2007)

I'm curious, what was your "lethal event"?


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## bigbearomaha (Sep 3, 2009)

I found an interesting little site with some 'odds' about bee lethality. Granted the data is from 1990, but interesting none the less.

At Adkins Bee Removal They cite :


> In the US, about two million out three hundred and five million people are allergic, that's about 0.55% of people that are allergic to bee stings


. 

also, in terms of africanized and other bee related deaths in the U.S. there was a .0001% chance of being stung to death, followed by a .007% chance related to all other stinging bees. Giving total odds of bee related death at odds of .0071%.

I think the cite is using census data for some of their math. Just thought seeing these numbers associated with allergies and bee deaths was interesting. 

Big Bear


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## Omie (Nov 10, 2009)

_Very frustrating_ that when the subject of my keeping bees comes up in casual conversation with acquaintances (not neighbors), fully about 25% of people immediately inform me they are 'deathly allergic' to bees. Obviously a lot of these people just have no clue. One time I asked how the person knew they were deathly allergic to bees, and they said got stung on the lip one time and their lip got 'really swollen up for days'. Ok, so that makes them 'deathly allergic' I guess. Like the boy who cried wolf, they make it hard for the people who really ARE dangerously allergic to be taken seriously.

It's been my experience that people say they are 'allergic' to all kinds of things when they simply don't like something or want to avoid it. When I worked in a restaurant years ago, people would tell me they were seriously_ allergic_ to salt, to meat, to fat, to 'vegetables'.....what _ever_. :waiting:


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## earthchild (Jun 30, 2009)

I agree, Omie. I have a neighbor who's "allergic" to bees. I asked him how he found out and he said he was stung in the neck and swelled up really bad. A couple of weeks later he came over and I showed him my swollen hand (from a bee sting) and he's like "OMG, you must be allergic, too" It really frustrates me when people don't take the time to learn about something by getting the facts or doing a little research themselves. Ignorance.


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## JonEdangerousli (May 8, 2007)

I had a business partner years ago who was allergic to red meat. Beef, pork, venison, etc. Could eat only poultry and fish. Seriously allergic. Almost died one morning when we ordered breakfast from a takeout place that cooked their biscuits with lard.


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## dave beeman (Sep 2, 2009)

I had bees in my back yard. The problem was not with the people on either side, it was with my insurance co. They said if I continued to keep the hives that they would cancel my insurance. I got mad but I also got my bees moved. Sometimes it is the things that you don't see that will blind side you.:doh:


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## tct1w (Jun 6, 2008)

Tell your neighbors and you should be just fine. I think its common courtesy to do that and like alot of folk have said about the allergic factor. My neighbors know and I have never heard a thing from them other than they want honey. It works. Dave


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## Bens-Bees (Sep 18, 2008)

dave beeman said:


> I had bees in my back yard. The problem was not with the people on either side, it was with my insurance co. They said if I continued to keep the hives that they would cancel my insurance. I got mad but I also got my bees moved. Sometimes it is the things that you don't see that will blind side you.:doh:


You should have moved your insurance policy instead of your bees.


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