Lived in southern Oregon in the past. Bee keepers there used stilts to protect their hives, they were 10 to 12 feet off the ground and the platform over hung the stilts by 3 or 4 feet.
Double the fence around the hives. Put them at a distance from each other that guarantees the bear can't get between them without touching at least one of them, and preferably both. Alternate the strands so that every other one is hot and every other one is grounded so that any contact between two adjacent wires is the same as contact between a hot wire and the ground the bear is standing on. This ensures a good current flow into the bear. Use barbed wire, also. Eventually he'll figure the reward isn't worth the pain.
Good strategy. When we put the bees back in this yard in the spring we'll likely do that. For now, they come out to their wintering yard, where we concentrate a number of hives. That wintering yard doesn't have bear problems.
The one thing we won't do is use barbed wire. We've found it doesn't deter bears and simply results in me having more torn pants. We have systematically converted all of our old yards except one - and we have more than 40 of them - to smooth wire electric fences. They work, but there's always some smartie bear that tries to defeat them.
This is a great idea! Be sure to stake down the chainlink so the bear can't just pull it aside. The real beauty of this idea is that it massively improves the grounding of the electric fence making it much more effective!
@@leoscheibelhut940 honestly I didn't even think about the increased grounding 😂. I use chicken wire on the ground to keep coyotes from digging into my chicken coop.
@@ElonaldTrusk If you don't have any chainlink laying around, chicken wire would be much cheaper to buy. Unlike a fox or coyote, a bear might be able to tear it up or tear it apart.
@@JT_70 Good chance the bear got zapped a time or two. Learned from the mistakes and developed a strategy that in time could prove successful. They are very intelligent, and have both a temper and determination to match. Awesome, fearsome beasts.
@@nicholasbarchak6860 What are you talking about? Bear spray is a defence that actually avoids the more lethal alternative of having to kill an aggressive bear. I accept that we're in bear territory, and I want to co-exist with them. So I invest lots of time and money to properly take care of my bees at no impact to the wildlife around us. I also limit the potential for me to cause an interaction with them.
Use the meat cache trick used in Alaska and Canada before modern technology. You build a platform beyond the reach of the bear and put the hives on that. Maker sure the posts are either metal or covered with metal. Then you have a ladder you can take down and put up to get to the hives.
An acquaintance had a problem with raccoons in their campsite and came up with a simple but effective solution. They got some marshmallows and a bottle of hot sauce and injected the hot sauce inside the marshmallows. (One of those bottles with the squirt cap works. ) They scattered the marshmallows around and kept an eye out for the raccoons. A few bites, and a few terrified looks on those little faces later, and they never returned. Disclosure : No animals were harmed in the making of this comment...
@@nicholasbarchak6860The animals weren’t hurt at all! I would never condone hurting any animal, but these people didn’t hurt them! Your answer was uncalled for!
For those in a dryer climates having problems with grounding. Buy 2 bags of rock salt. Mix 1 in 5-gal bucket of water, and pour in with other bag around grounding pole! Then fill in with dirt...
Great conclusion. You don't want to hunt it down, other bears will be back. If it's still bear habitat/territory, leave it to them. BUT, if they don't retain enough territory, every beekeeper will hae problems.
You need to use barbed wire on your electric fence because a bears fur is so thick that a single strand of wire may not be able to shock them every time they touch it. The barbed wire will poke through their fur plus the barbs will hurt them making them less likely to mess with it next time.
Thanks for the comment. However, our experience has been the opposite; a barbed wire fence can cause us more problems than they are worth, and when we have an effective electric fence it is a good deterrent. I also don't like the idea of causing a bear a wound. But mostly, I get tired of buying new work pants!
It is often illegal to electrify a barbed wire fence, and it's considered bad practice to put the two near each other. Animals (or humans) will get caught on the barbs, then repeatedly shocked by the nearby electric fence, until something frees them or they die. The goal is to deter the animals, not cause them serious injury.
@@moreld1 Here in New Zealand it is illegal to electrify barbed wire as it can result in a fatality due to more current flowing internally if someone / something got hooked up
Just be careful with the fence. If it is too close to the hives, the hum and field can upset bees and they fly off. We did this by mistake on our farm one year. A bit further back would be recommended
can you put down a 3 to 4 foot wide mesh plate and connect it to the perimeter wire fence ,make it 6to 1 foot inside and the rest out side your perimeter..... and for extra protection, get some marine grade ply wood about half inch thick , and normal size, 4 X 8 ,the marine plywood is to be able to with stand being out side and on the ground, put nails through the plywood about 3inches wide and put that down around the perimeter as well, that way the bear will get shocked and will be stabbed with the nails through the board as well, bet the bear wont make it through that... just my 2 cents... electric fence and electric ground and nails in a 4 foot wide board would be hard to get through,, the area you look like your protecting should not be hard to protect, again just my 2 cents.....
We sometimes use nail boards to discourage skunks from getting near the hives - they scratch the front to irritate the bees and then eat any that come out. We'll try the grounded page wire trick this next season. For now the bees have been removed and the yard shut down for the season.
Exactly! And that's how electric fences are intended to work. They train the animals that the unwanted behavior leads to pain. After a couple of zaps, they stop trying. In OP's case, the jolt from his charger delivered to such a small length of fence, should give the bear a rather painful shock. I'm curious how many more times the bear will attempt to reach these hives.
Thanks for the suggestion . . . We have them on some yards we use. This yard was closed down last week. I'll be posting another video of dealing with bears, with footage from our cams . . .
If you had large boulders to fill in where the bear has been digging. They would have to be big enough that the bear couldn’t pull them away from the area.
Have you checked your beehives, they could be all empty.. when I was little my dad was telling me a story about a bear, a fox, and honey, in which a bear was outsmarted by a fox taking all the honey..
Me being me i would have filled that hole with water ..and installed a sprinkler to keep the entire area wet after dark..I personally know what its like to be belt buckle deep in water when the ground wire was accidentally lifted.
Huh???? You do realize that we aren't denying the bear free range; he or she is free to go anywhere. The bees are fully protected from the bear. That's the purpose of the electric fence.
You are far to kind, the charger for the fence needs a few more joules. A common cattle fence charger is 8 joules and there is a chager made just for predators that is 48 joules. Another enhancer is to alternate hot and ground, so that you are not facing the voltage drop due to bear's paws, contact with dirt, or low moisture. My dad had a dear problem that he solved by putting peanut butter on aluminum foil on the electric fence.
Holy smokes! 48 joules? I'm afraid that if I accidentally hit that, I'd be off like a rocket to the moon! (Actually, our chargers put out close to 3 joules under best circumstancers, but I tend to be conservative in my estimates. All I know is that when I accidentally come in contact, the bears on the other side of the river can probably hear me . . . Thanks for the terrific comment; what company makes these chargers?
@@honeybeezen Gallagher now makes a 58 joule but it is about 2500$. It would be good for starting fires if it comes in contact with anything dry. I don't have bears near me and black bears are all we have in NC. I am glad that we don't have grisly bears.
Put a subterranean barrier around the Bee Hives! Or place your Hives on a self contained solid base platform! otherwise this will just happen again if not by this bear then another will!
I think we need a trail cam on this.
Nah, mini-gun turrets!
He's bringing a ladder next time.
🤣
Hopefully not aluminum
Rubber gloves too
@@dentalnovember and rubber boots
Or a trampoline 😂
The bear is home reading Popular Mechanic, figuring out how to short out your fence. Best of luck!
You made me laugh so hard.. I even pictured a bear doing it..
Bee vigilant!
Make sure it can’t bear it anymore!
Daaaaaaaay'um!
Lived in southern Oregon in the past. Bee keepers there used stilts to protect their hives, they were 10 to 12 feet off the ground and the platform over hung the stilts by 3 or 4 feet.
how many people came here expecting to see a bear get zapped by an electric fence?
Wait for the next video. There's one there that caused a bear to stop getting into our boxes. Didn't hurt him but just dissuaded.
Double the fence around the hives. Put them at a distance from each other that guarantees the bear can't get between them without touching at least one of them, and preferably both. Alternate the strands so that every other one is hot and every other one is grounded so that any contact between two adjacent wires is the same as contact between a hot wire and the ground the bear is standing on. This ensures a good current flow into the bear. Use barbed wire, also. Eventually he'll figure the reward isn't worth the pain.
Good strategy. When we put the bees back in this yard in the spring we'll likely do that. For now, they come out to their wintering yard, where we concentrate a number of hives. That wintering yard doesn't have bear problems.
Good tactics, also make the yard a bit bigger so the hives aren't so close to the edge, reduces the enticement factor.
@@RasheedKhan-he6xx 😂😂😂😂 not sure if you're joking
The one thing we won't do is use barbed wire. We've found it doesn't deter bears and simply results in me having more torn pants. We have systematically converted all of our old yards except one - and we have more than 40 of them - to smooth wire electric fences. They work, but there's always some smartie bear that tries to defeat them.
@DeereX748 You only need a hot single wire a foot and a half from the fence .
Unroll chain link fence on the ground around the permiter and anchor it in place. Animals avoid walking on it and its much more work to get under.
Electrify the chain link fence?
@@samuledarconi2927 if it were elevated on stakes... But I'm not sure if it would start a fire or not when grass starts touching it lol
This is a great idea! Be sure to stake down the chainlink so the bear can't just pull it aside. The real beauty of this idea is that it massively improves the grounding of the electric fence making it much more effective!
@@leoscheibelhut940 honestly I didn't even think about the increased grounding 😂. I use chicken wire on the ground to keep coyotes from digging into my chicken coop.
@@ElonaldTrusk If you don't have any chainlink laying around, chicken wire would be much cheaper to buy. Unlike a fox or coyote, a bear might be able to tear it up or tear it apart.
Bears are stubborn little buggers
The bear must have read the “Electrified Fence” warning signs and decided to try and dig under it. He must know his Aye Bee Sees.
That was a good one!
You’re funny, I appreciate that
@@JT_70 Good chance the bear got zapped a time or two. Learned from the mistakes and developed a strategy that in time could prove successful. They are very intelligent, and have both a temper and determination to match. Awesome, fearsome beasts.
Pooh bear wants his honey.
Oh bother!
Bee careful! He might be watching you! These creatures are smart and they will learn your routine!
You got that right great comment
Good advice! I always carry bear spray with me in those circumstances, and I also stay away from brushy areas he may be hiding in.
Might need a fence around the fence 3 to 4 foot apart or 3 foot wire mesh laid down connected to the ground.
@@nicholasbarchak6860 What are you talking about? Bear spray is a defence that actually avoids the more lethal alternative of having to kill an aggressive bear. I accept that we're in bear territory, and I want to co-exist with them. So I invest lots of time and money to properly take care of my bees at no impact to the wildlife around us. I also limit the potential for me to cause an interaction with them.
Use the meat cache trick used in Alaska and Canada before modern technology. You build a platform beyond the reach of the bear and put the hives on that. Maker sure the posts are either metal or covered with metal. Then you have a ladder you can take down and put up to get to the hives.
But Yogi, Mr Ranger doesn't like it when you dig under the fence 🐨
Hey, hey, hey Little Boo Boo, I'm smarter than the average bear ! 🐻
An acquaintance had a problem with raccoons in their campsite and came up with a simple but effective solution. They got some marshmallows and a bottle of hot sauce and injected the hot sauce inside the marshmallows. (One of those bottles with the squirt cap works. ) They scattered the marshmallows around and kept an eye out for the raccoons. A few bites, and a few terrified looks on those little faces later, and they never returned. Disclosure : No animals were harmed in the making of this comment...
@@nicholasbarchak6860The animals weren’t hurt at all! I would never condone hurting any animal, but these people didn’t hurt them! Your answer was uncalled for!
Grizz love hot sauce
Well next time he will try to go on his back, it should work all the way to the point where he becomes Mrs. Bear.
How do you NOT have a hunt camera/motion cam on that spot?!? Good Grief!
That's a serious excavation!
I can BEARLY contain my laughter.
It’s the fact he is illiterate that gave him a shocking result 😂😂😂
He's building a fence and the bears are paying for it.
Meanwhile, off in the fog...the bear says, "Humans taste better anyways."
Yogi needs to stick to picnic baskets.
What will bee, will bee.
Need a video of the bear at work!
At least Yogi could probably read the sign !
Bears are smart. He will figure out something.
Bury chain link fencing around perimeter of bee hives right under electric fencing.
I would constantly be looking over my back if I was standing there.
Laud sound also may stop bears.
Use powerful laud speakers, that may turn on by motion detectors.
He bearly missed getting in there 🤣
For those in a dryer climates having problems with grounding. Buy 2 bags of rock salt. Mix 1 in 5-gal bucket of water, and pour in with other bag around grounding pole! Then fill in with dirt...
My tortoise digs a similar looking hole under the fence.
He bearly failed and I am sure he can bear up and strive for that honey.
yes, the matter of time is when it gets dark...and the big bear returns with family!
He paid his electric bill early
Simple bear necessities
Don’t wiz on the electric fence!
The bear should have read the sign...
Great conclusion. You don't want to hunt it down, other bears will be back. If it's still bear habitat/territory, leave it to them. BUT, if they don't retain enough territory, every beekeeper will hae problems.
The fence said...
This is more than I can bear
Might need to pour a concrete pad or curb so it can't dig under not sure if it would effect the hives I'm not a bee keeper
Bears are crazy about honey. He might come back.
You could cover ground near fence with sharp metal wierd, so bear doesnt dig.
I've seen hives in the National Forest with E fences around them. I wondered how that would work. Bears are good diggers
You could either double the fence or run ground wires along the ground about 3-4ft out from the hot fence or both.
sections of 4 foot rebar every foot or so, driven into the ground, just below the level of the lowest wire.
What about nail boards/beds?
Put a game cam up
We had a black bear do this about 5 years ago. Once in he just grabbed a super and ran right off tearing down the fence.
Would a fence into the ground plus the electricity prevent that?
Or a booby trap flash bang?
Or 12 guage slug ?
You need to use barbed wire on your electric fence because a bears fur is so thick that a single strand of wire may not be able to shock them every time they touch it. The barbed wire will poke through their fur plus the barbs will hurt them making them less likely to mess with it next time.
Thanks for the comment. However, our experience has been the opposite; a barbed wire fence can cause us more problems than they are worth, and when we have an effective electric fence it is a good deterrent. I also don't like the idea of causing a bear a wound. But mostly, I get tired of buying new work pants!
It is often illegal to electrify a barbed wire fence, and it's considered bad practice to put the two near each other. Animals (or humans) will get caught on the barbs, then repeatedly shocked by the nearby electric fence, until something frees them or they die. The goal is to deter the animals, not cause them serious injury.
@@moreld1 Here in New Zealand it is illegal to electrify barbed wire as it can result in a fatality due to more current flowing internally if someone / something got hooked up
Reminds me of the movie Forbidden Planet.
would make a "Sweet Rug"....just saying, Honey. ..LOL !!
Moving the hives is best. Lots of time and money involved.
Have been surprised that with the increasing bear numbers WHY the bee keepers do not put the hives on raised platforms 15-18 feet up..
Works even better if you put steel plates down for even better ground, and can dig through them
Just be careful with the fence. If it is too close to the hives, the hum and field can upset bees and they fly off. We did this by mistake on our farm one year. A bit further back would be recommended
You said the fence delivers 9000 volts , but volts don't kill you, it's amps that kill.
That is the idea of the fence, he doesn't want to kill the bears.
Maybe a 12 gua and a big pot for bear stew. And some freezer space.
What about bear traps?
You better hope Yogi doesn’t bring along BooBoo next time
Smarter than the average bear!
can you put down a 3 to 4 foot wide mesh plate and connect it to the perimeter wire fence ,make it 6to 1 foot inside and the rest out side your perimeter..... and for extra protection, get some marine grade ply wood about half inch thick , and normal size, 4 X 8 ,the marine plywood is to be able to with stand being out side and on the ground, put nails through the plywood about 3inches wide and put that down around the perimeter as well, that way the bear will get shocked and will be stabbed with the nails through the board as well, bet the bear wont make it through that... just my 2 cents... electric fence and electric ground and nails in a 4 foot wide board would be hard to get through,, the area you look like your protecting should not be hard to protect, again just my 2 cents.....
We sometimes use nail boards to discourage skunks from getting near the hives - they scratch the front to irritate the bees and then eat any that come out. We'll try the grounded page wire trick this next season. For now the bees have been removed and the yard shut down for the season.
Maybe he will not try again if every try ends in pain.
Exactly! And that's how electric fences are intended to work. They train the animals that the unwanted behavior leads to pain. After a couple of zaps, they stop trying. In OP's case, the jolt from his charger delivered to such a small length of fence, should give the bear a rather painful shock. I'm curious how many more times the bear will attempt to reach these hives.
He will be back with a JCB next time .
He might drag sticks to knock the fence down.
Put a moat around the electric fence and fill with water.
Five or six Abrahams tanks will also work.
Too bad no camera..
Trail cam needed.
Thanks for the suggestion . . . We have them on some yards we use. This yard was closed down last week. I'll be posting another video of dealing with bears, with footage from our cams . . .
Just a thought leave one hive far far away in the woods for the bear.
Or if you want to spend the extra money and add another ring of electric fence a couple feet out ?
If you had large boulders to fill in where the bear has been digging. They would have to be big enough that the bear couldn’t pull them away from the area.
id be more afraid of a pissed off bear knocking me into that fence from the fog
Have you checked your beehives, they could be all empty.. when I was little my dad was telling me a story about a bear, a fox, and honey, in which a bear was outsmarted by a fox taking all the honey..
Time for bear soup...
What happens when the bees hit the hotwire?
Nothing they are not grounded. Same as a bird sitting on a wire.
Me being me i would have filled that hole with water ..and installed a sprinkler to keep the entire area wet after dark..I personally know what its like to be belt buckle deep in water when the ground wire was accidentally lifted.
took that bear 4-5 min to make that hole.
Tops, probably took 4-5 shocks along the way before he quit. But he will be back,
PETA will be ticked about the bear being denied free range and the Bee's not being fully protected from the Bear.
Huh???? You do realize that we aren't denying the bear free range; he or she is free to go anywhere. The bees are fully protected from the bear. That's the purpose of the electric fence.
Elevate the hives.
Put 2 rows of fencing
Maybe he could be a decent republican president if Mr. T ends up in jail?
For all the hard work the bear did you should leave a treat say maybe a comb of honey or at least a emptied hive 😂
You are far to kind, the charger for the fence needs a few more joules. A common cattle fence charger is 8 joules and there is a chager made just for predators that is 48 joules. Another enhancer is to alternate hot and ground, so that you are not facing the voltage drop due to bear's paws, contact with dirt, or low moisture. My dad had a dear problem that he solved by putting peanut butter on aluminum foil on the electric fence.
Holy smokes! 48 joules? I'm afraid that if I accidentally hit that, I'd be off like a rocket to the moon! (Actually, our chargers put out close to 3 joules under best circumstancers, but I tend to be conservative in my estimates. All I know is that when I accidentally come in contact, the bears on the other side of the river can probably hear me . . . Thanks for the terrific comment; what company makes these chargers?
@@honeybeezen Gallagher now makes a 58 joule but it is about 2500$. It would be good for starting fires if it comes in contact with anything dry. I don't have bears near me and black bears are all we have in NC. I am glad that we don't have grisly bears.
Wow ‼️‼️
there are shops around that sell guns bud
200grains at 2500fps would fix it
Not a grizzle fan good luck
Put a subterranean barrier around the Bee Hives! Or place your Hives on a self contained solid base platform! otherwise this will just happen again if not by this bear then another will!
Mite wear gunboots nexted time
A concrete pad will stop the digging.
Why not move the bear to the next state?
This bare behind story is of little interst to me.
Fences don’t work.
Grizzly meets Tesla ...
Build a proper fence
Fence doesn't appear to be the weakness. Some buried and electrified chainlink around the perimeter might make it unbearable ⚡️
…….wow………?
Yikes.
The bear has an attitude problem, he needs to get therapy, it’s not your fault.