Cows Trashed My Apiary

I woke up this morning to a text on my phone from one of the landowners where I keep all of my bees, and he said that a bunch of cows have absolutely wrecked all of my beehives. I'm on my way there to find out what's going on, but as you can see, I'm a little bit trembly. I reckon this is going to be quite bad. So there's always the risk when you're keeping your bees by livestock that the livestock are going to get in there, and cows are the absolute worst for this because they're so inquisitive And when they get in there, they're very big and strong as well, and they just bash everything over. I've had a couple of colonies actually in my garden where a cow got into my garden before, and the cow just completely knocked them over. I think what happens is they get in there, they get stung, and then they panic and they just smash everything up. This apiary here has got a lot of beehives in it. They're not all full, but there's probably like 50 or 60 beehives in this apiary. And they're all congested into a very, very small area. So I'm going to go there now. I'm going to shut off the GoPro. Let's see what the cows have done and how much damage they've actually made.

Right, there's quite a lot going on in this video. So I turned up at the apiary and we've got a swarm in the tree. Is that a natural swarm? I don't know. Is it a colony that's just completely absconded because the cows have wrecked their homes? I don't know. We've got lots of cows in In the background. I don't know if you can see them. Some very big cows, some very small cows as well. Let's go and take a look around the apiary and see what damage the cows have actually done. Right, so the swarm that's in the tree, that's going to be a really easy fix. We can get that off, place that off into a nuc. I'll do that at the end though, because otherwise there's going to be bees flying. Only a tiny little nuc though. But if we walk through here, this is where you'll start to see the damage. So this Was the fence post. I had 2 fence posts in this apiary. One was a tree, one was a fence post, and then I just ratchet strapped a pallet in and that was my access. Now unbelievably, if you look through here, the cows have ripped themselves a complete section of fence out. Like unbelievable. This was a little bit wavy, this fence, but it definitely wasn't this bad. And you look at the floor there, that is just Gnarled metal where they've got through. Okay, fence post was a little bit rotten down there, but they've really had a go at this. And I think I know what's happened because I don't think the cows would have just kind of made a beeline— sorry, excuse the pun— to get in this apiary. And I think I know what's happened. I don't think the cows would have wrecked this fence as much as they have just to try and get in the apiary. Much more likely that they're doing it to try and get out of the apiary. Here is the clue. It's right over there. So this is all supposed to be completely secure. Cows, you're not supposed to be on that side of the fence.

Yep.

So you go back the other way, please. This is the problem. They're not supposed to be here. And if you look over here, you can see, right, a huge amount of cows, some incredibly cute calves. I'm not going to blame the calves. I don't think it was them that did all the damage. Kind of being very brazen and just walking through this kind of field of cattle hoping that they don't charge me, but they're pretty calm here, so I'm hoping I'm not going to be in too much trouble. Not getting my words out properly though, cuz I'm a little bit scared. But you can see what has happened here then is that they have trampled this fence over here. So what I think's happened is they trampled this fence to try and get in here. They appear to have done some heavy grazing over here, so they probably got in there to try and get to that food source. And then what I think's happened is back over here, they've got to the apiary, they've got in with the bees, they've got stung, and then they've trampled their way out of the fence. So this is almost certainly what's happened. They've trampled over this fence here, walked along this path, absolutely bashed it down. You can see footprints, you can see cow pats. They have been making this their home. And then you can see, look at all those footprints in there. They have been bashing things around. Oh my goodness, look what's going on over here. So you know what, this could not really have been much better. And I'm sorry for putting you through all that suspense because this is the first time I've honestly seen it. And what we've got here is we've got one colony Where they've knocked it over a little bit. Luckily the straps held that together, so this colony is going to be fine. We've then got a lot of empty boxes, so I've been storing all of my Langstroth nucs over here, and I've not got an issue with any of these because they've just got nothing in them. So there's no bees in these. Okay, they've smashed a few bits up. They smashed a couple of Payne's poly nucs up. Got another Payne's poly nuc roof smashed up over there. Couple of roofs, Suiyenti roofs smashed up as well. That was just a bait hive that didn't have any bees in it. That one there, that is a beehive that's completely full of bees. That one at the top there, that is full of bees as well. And then this one up here, that is full of bees. So although you can see that the cows have been up here, probably trying to get to this water source actually. There's a little bit of a stream down here that's dried up. Maybe the cows know that there is a stream there, or was a stream there at some point. But that colony there, that is a full colony of bees that's not been touched. And as you can see, it needs a little bit of strimming up here. Really, really overgrown up here now. That's a colony there that's not been touched either. And again, needs a huge amount of work in this apiary to tidy everything up. And then the vast majority of the rest of the equipment is actually in good condition. I have been so, so lucky here. So I'd say that is about as lucky as you can possibly get. They have come in there, they've trampled, all they've done is they've slid the super off one, but the ratchet strap has kept it in place. They've broken a few poly roofs, they've knocked over a few wooden hives, but apart from that, they've actually done very, very little damage. I could not have asked for a better result, but I have no idea where this swarm has come from.