# 900 hive upset



## G3farms (Jun 13, 2009)

what a big mess that was. I would have liked to seen some pics.

G3


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

Funny how the media gets it wrong almost always. "The shipping of bees is a billion dollar business in Canada".

Russ is alive and well for those who want to know. A few cuts and a little shaken up but otherwise fine. I saw the mess on the news, doesn't look good for the bees. It's kinda of a particular thing with bees. You know they are piecing those hives together and will do the best they can. They'll move them to the winter yard, and you can look at them and they'll look fine. Assuming the queen survives the trauma, usually the colonies do poorlyoverwinter. I've experienced bear damage and pieced hives together and they look ok going into winter but come spring they are dead or near dead. The trauma somehow does them in. I think it ties in directly with the saying from oldtime beekeepers, "Just leave them alone". Wonder what the insurance adjuster will have to say? From the adjuster's side, he will say well those 600 hives are alive (assuming 300 of the had the equipment disintigrate). So we'll pay for the 300 that got damaged. In fact come spring 60-80 prcent of the fall survivors will be dead or severely damaged in my opinion. So I'm saying that 60 % of the surviving 600, another 360 will be dead as a result of the trauma they suffered yesterday. Anybody else have experience with bears knocking hives around or a case of road rash?

Jean-Marc

Jean-Marc


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

G3, just look at the site that Irwin postedf, it's all there, half way thru that clip.
Kinda messy. Glad it wasn't me.

Jean-Marc


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## Wee3Bees Apiary (Feb 21, 2006)

I looked at the video link in Irwin's post... what destruction! I am glad the beekeeper is okay; his hives on the truck were devastated.


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## Allen Martens (Jan 13, 2007)

jean-marc said:


> Anybody else have experience with bears knocking hives around or a case of road rash?


A bear hit 7 or 8 hives in one of my yards about a month ago. Mostly the hives were tipped with a lid off or the bottom open. They were open for a good week -- the farmer who owns the land had lost my phone number. The weather was very cool at this time (little rain fortunately) but three of the smallest hives still got robbed out for the most part. They're all marked and moved into the wintering shed so we'll see if they make it. Your not giving me much hope Jean-Marc.

It was a crazy year for bears around here. I got hit at 5 different locations this years. A couple of the locations were in areas miles away from solid bush where bears are never seen. In the others there were fence or fencer malfunctions. I don't know haw I could have so many in one year. In the last case, the grounding wire for my fencer was on the verge of being broken and the bear didn't get an adequate shock.

Fortunately the damage was minimal in most of the cases and I got compensation for the damage. One yard of 30 was in a sunflower field that was nearly done blooming so I immediately moved the bees back to a fall yard. We had a very warm late Aug/Sept and these bees pulled in another 50 lbs of alfalfa honey each. Had to thank the bear in this case.


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## chillardbee (May 26, 2005)

jean-marc said:


> Anybody else have experience with bears knocking hives around or a case of road rash?
> Jean-Marc


 Thank God no, not as bad as that. I've been hit by bear 4 times with 13 hives demolished in the worst hit and lost 8 hives off the truck once which was bad enough at the time since it was around mid night and dark, and hives busted apart and bees clustering all over the place. And thanks to the advice i had once received from Jean-marc, i put them together as quickly as i could and took the 20 stings rather than fumbling through the dark for hours and taking 80+.


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## alpha6 (May 12, 2008)

Sad to see this happen to the beek and his bees. Hope he can recover from the loss. From the pics I doubt they will even be able to recover 25%...on the bright side if any do live he can breed queens as "survivor" stock.


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## Trevor Mansell (Jan 16, 2005)

http://jalopnik.com/5049200/six-perish-in-massive-bee-swarm-following-chinese-truck-accident
Here is another accident over in China.


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

That one looks real ugly.

Jean-Marc


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## williebeeman (May 5, 2004)

jean-marc said:


> Wonder what the insurance adjuster will have to say? From the adjuster's side, he will say well those 600 hives are alive (assuming 300 of the had the equipment disintigrate). So we'll pay for the 300 that got damaged. In fact come spring 60-80 prcent of the fall survivors will be dead or severely damaged in my opinion. So I'm saying that 60 % of the surviving 600, another 360 will be dead as a result of the trauma they suffered yesterday. Anybody else have experience with bears knocking hives around or a case of road rash?
> 
> Jean-Marc
> 
> Jean-Marc


In the news story it mentioned that only 25% of the hives are expected to survive so seems like the losses will be much greater. Hope they cover it


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## TwT (Aug 5, 2004)

just one question, I dont know what type trailer they use in Canada but how big are trailers up there to carry 900 hives? thats about twice the trailer size here right?


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## michaelrobertfink (Nov 11, 2009)

poor bees =(


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## irwin harlton (Jan 7, 2005)

TWT, if look closer at the video,you will see these are nuc size boxes, also see a Super B trailer in video	32' Lead - 28' Pup


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

Irwin those looked like singles to me. You get about 450 doubles on a Super-B, twice as many singles, 900. Except with extra pallets in between creating more height. That was part of the problem, plus a little bit of panic and one of those crazy turns that gets tighter as you go in it. Plenty of weight behind created the mess he ended up with. The only consolation is he is fairly young and resilient. It'll take more than a 900 hive wipe out to keep him down.

Jean-Marc


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## irwin harlton (Jan 7, 2005)

YOUR right Jean, single hives, .....................stacked 5 high ?


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

I think 6 high.

Jean-Marc


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