any way of discouraging these pesky locals
fencing them out
spikes on the landing platform
calling them rude names???
Having had no experience with Eastern Water Dragons but heaps of experience with Cane Toads, we keep our hives well off the ground making it hard for the Cane Toads to reach the bees. So it appears that some kind of physical barrier would be the way to go. You could try calling them rude names:), however I don’t think that would work very well:) Good luck with that, cheers
In addition to Jeff’s excellent suggestion of putting the hive on a stand, would it be worth trying a mouse guard in the hive entrance? Perhaps an even better possibility is a robbing screen:
http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/files/147611.pdf
A robbing screen drives the bees up right at the hive entrance, so they are already in flight within a few centimeters of the hive front. That would at least make them harder to catch!
Other possibilities might be electric fences, barbed wire, a minefield around the hive, and a motion-sensing automated machine gun…
thanks dawn i like this
it may frustrate the cheeky sod
Some of us have those here in the UK to deter two legged thieves!
There ar advantages to having your colonies in the garden
If you think it is just a singular individual that is liking your bees you could try a trap and relocate plan. If it’s all of them in the area then this may not be feasible. Look at devices used to keep squirrels out of bird feeders you may be able to adapt the concept to your hive stand and prevent them from getting at your bees that way.
Is this water dragon??
There a couple of them in my backyard and the one in this picture is right under the hive. I saw this animal feasting on the bees close to it. The hive was full until last week I saw this roaming around the hive and today I see that quite a lot of bees disappeared
Is there a way to drive these predators out of garden? I think 2 of them are feasting on 2 of my hives
Kindly give me some tips to shoo them off.
Thanks
Google seems to think it is a garden lizard:
I would make sure that your hive is on a good hive stand, so that the lizards can’t reach the bees
Good Morning Dawn
The hives are on a stand that is about 1.5ft above the ground. The lizard keeps moving around the hives and seems to catch those low flying bees. Certainly there is a reduction in the colony count as compared to that 2 weeks ago
I will try to keep the stand still higher.
Yikes! I admit, I think it’s rather handsome..how about a prickly mat or some kind of barrier to keep this critter from getting so close? a collection of loose large objects that move when he tries to walk on, like aluminum pans and cans?
Look up skunk guard
Make a vertical take off barrier for the bees
can try some thorny dry stems below the base. Today it was raining, so I did not notice them around
How’s it going, Usha? I also thought of switching to an upper entrance if this fellow is persistent.
Hey Eva..
I wacked him twice. So I don’t see the critter so often. I feel sad
.
The top lines of frames used to be full and started to dwindle because of these lizards
I opened the top lid today and observed the 3 hives.. I think the bees again came up on to the frame top line , so the count went up.
Eva, thank you for coming back to me on this worry , I felt very happy that there is someone out there thought to check back.
I have the whole bio diversity prevailing in my backyard .. thanks to the dry leaves mulch around a huge mango tree that these critters, crawl all day along under them
Thank you again
Should I post some pics for you?
Hahahaha yes, the whole biodiversity - I can sympathize! We had a fox family living under my neighbor’s shed this spring, with two kits that were absolutely darling, but since I have chickens, this arrangement doesn’t work so well The parents have moved on but one of the kits has grown up and established its territory nearby!
I like that along with sharing advice we can make connections here, too
And sure, I’d love to see pics of your setup and your mango tree zoo
cool
I will share the pics during this week.