Greetings! Is it possible to keep both bees and chickens? We have four hives now, and would like to add some chickens to our farm this year. I read a post earlier about chickens eating bees, and I wondered if this was a normal habit of chickens. Any information given will be much appreciated! Thanks! Annette
My neighbors have several hives, and I have lots of their (?) bees visiting my fruit trees in spring, flowering trees, shrubs, and flowers all season. My bantams have always turned away from bees to avoid them, never interested in eating them. Other chickens ?, well, I have had chickens all my life and have never seen one interested in eating bees or chasing them, as they will grasshoppers, earwigs, moths, even mosquitoes, for instance. They will eat a dead fly on a window sill of their coop, but never a bee, yellow jacket, wasp or hornet. Can't say about your planned chickens???? But I would not worry. CJR
I have honey bees to pollinate my berry field and the only animals i have seen get stung were dogs,cats,and me. Some times wasps build nests in the coops ans they coexist just fine.
My chickens love to eat honey bees. The neighbor across the road has a number of hives (about 20). Around here, the earliest insects out in the spring are the honey bees. In the cool spring weather, they fly into the hen house.... then they're doomed! LOL! Our chickens love to eat them. But they only get the low-flying ones!
Thank you all very much for your input!! Judging from your answers, I think it will be fine to have both chickens and bees. We are going to try the Black Java chicken this year, and are really looking forward to it! Will report back if our hives suddenly disappear... Thanks!
Infomaniac, Have you ever made Mead? (A fermented honet wine). Fun and easy. I was just sampling all our wines yesterday and will start new meads this week. Trade your neighbor some eggs for honey and get fermenting.
By Cjeanr on Tuesday, January 22, 2002 - 02:10 pm:
By Robbpa on Tuesday, January 22, 2002 - 03:34 pm:
By Infomaniac on Tuesday, January 22, 2002 - 04:25 pm:
We sell eggs at Farmers' Market and the man with the bee hives sells there too. In October, when the market was closing for the season, we were laughing with him that our birds get quite a few of his bees. But, the chickens probably don't get enough of them to damage the hive.
I wouldn't be concerned that the chickens would get so many of them that the hive would be harmed.
By Anetq on Wednesday, January 23, 2002 - 09:46 am:
By Robbpa on Wednesday, January 23, 2002 - 11:13 am: