Do you have any idea about easy, cheap and long life (no electricity around) way that helps to find stolen hives or helps to protect them? GPS Tracker, camera, microchips or just branding of hives?
George, welcome to Beemaster. In Alabama by law we are to put our apiary ID on our hives. I brand mine. I can't help you much because around where I live I've never even heard of a hive being stolen. Where you from?
with that forum name he is obviously an "international man of mystery" ;-)
Mine are all branded with my name. They are also all eight frame mediums. They also have hand holds only on the ends. It won't help me track them, but it makes them pretty identifiable. My biggest reason is that I have a lot of them on other people's land and I don't want an argument someday as to who owns them...
Also a sign WARNING KILLER BEES BEEWARE.
Thanks! I am beginner, this year was my first. My grandfather has appiary in Europe and I got one hive in New York. I was just wondering if my lovely bees are safe :-). I like killer bees sign, it is fun :-). Branding seems ok, but how to do it?
A branding iron is expensive, but if keeps your hives from being stolen it would definitely be worth it.
Quote from: George007 on February 16, 2016, 09:02:56 AM
Branding seems ok, but how to do it?
If you are only talking one or two hives you can paint free hand your name in the raw wood with melted wax. Then paint the box any color. The paint won't stay where the wax is.
if you are handy with a welder or know someone who is you can make a branding iron - I have made two in my life as a beekeeper in two different States requiring different numbers. Our requirements are the numbers have to be 1" high and I used angle iron end on - the current number being L704 so all it took was 3 bits of angle -2 squashed a bit in the vice and a piece of pipe a small piece of straight and 15 minute fiddle with the welder - the handle came off an old garden tool with a wooden handle and iron shaft.
If a branding iron is more money than you want to spend then maybe get an etcher.
The uncomfortable truth is that Joe Public doesn't steal beehives, or anything from beehives - Joe is far too nervous of bees for that - it's other beekeepers who do the stealing. So, sadly, although 'Killer Bee' signs are amusing enough, they won't actually deter thieves.
Bear in mind that there are two separate approaches to take towards thefts - one is to deter the theft from occurring, the other is to detect the hive once it has been stolen. But they are quite different. So - branding, gps trackers etc won't actually stop the theft, whereas ground anchors might. I say 'might', rather than 'will', because a determined thief will have made a prior inspection, and will be armed with bolt cutters or whatever else is required to overcome any obstacles.
Thefts are of three kinds: Boxes, Bees and/or Honey.
Boxes can be protected by making them yourself and leaving them scruffy, or painting them outrageous colours. Anything to make them more difficult to sell than new, commercially-built boxes.
Two or more hives can be secured by one or more ground anchors, with a telescopic steel roof secured to it/them - this was a method successfully used by Roger Delon high up in the French Alps.
I deploy Long Hives in the fields around here - these have a low profile, and what can't be seen won't be stolen. If I should ever experienced a theft, then I'd bolt two or more together, and padlock the roofs on. That still wouldn't stop a determined thief from stealing bees or honey, but it might just encourage them to look elsewhere instead.
Sadly, there is NO guaranteed method of preventing theft - hives are items of value left unattended for long periods of time: ideal targets for thieves - the best you can do is make life tough for the thief, and construct your boxes as cheaply as possible so that if a theft does occur, that hit can be absorbed with minimal financial loss.
LJ
Little John you are right about who steals bees - try all the queens being stolen, then a few weeks after the requeening the hives get stolen ! They got found about 250 km away in the possession of father and son beeks. Found out by a nosey neighbour ringing the DPI to find out how many hives were allowed on small rural properties as the neighbours had just doubled the number of hives. DPI checked and found if true that was more than they were registered for so paid a visit. The stolen hives were there with their brands.
Quote from: GSF on February 17, 2016, 05:58:33 AM
If a branding iron is more money than you want to spend then maybe get an etcher.
Could you get metal stencils and shoot thru them with a torch? (This is only an hypothetical, I haven't wanted to do it)
Wombat, it seems you have been lucky with your hives. How it continued? How much it could be for a branding iron? Unfortunately, I am not handy with a welder and would be affraid of experiments with a torch...
Another cheap way of making a branding iron is to use #10 copper wire bent in the shape of the letter or number and heat it with a Weller soldering gun. You would have to make and iron for each letter/number and change them one at a time. Use some kind of insulator to push the wire into the burning wood.
Instead of burning a brand, could you make a "stencil/pattern " out of 1/4" plywood and then use a Dremel tool with a vee bit to engrave the boxes?
That sounds like a viable plan but also like a whole lot of work ;-P
Quote from: Dabbler on February 17, 2016, 04:21:57 PM
Instead of burning a brand, could you make a "stencil/pattern " out of 1/4" plywood and then use a Dremel tool with a vee bit to engrave the boxes?
Sure but if he has nothing to start with that ain't so cheap.
My brand cost me about $100 (it is not electric). I heated it with a MAPP gas torch. Works well. I branded my boxes and the tops of my frames.
Quote from: Acebird on February 17, 2016, 08:47:45 PM
Quote from: Dabbler on February 17, 2016, 04:21:57 PM
Instead of burning a brand, could you make a "stencil/pattern " out of 1/4" plywood and then use a Dremel tool with a vee bit to engrave the boxes?
Sure but if he has nothing to start with that ain't so cheap.
$10 .00, scrap wood, and some time.
http://www.harborfreight.com/80-piece-rotary-tool-kit-97626.html
Just saying . . . . .
My brand was not cheap but it was worth it. If I only had four or five hives, it probably would not be worth it... Back when I had two, I free formed the brand with a torch and a soldering iron. It was very time consuming...
The thief will be a beekeeper. If your hives are off the beaten path, he will have plenty of time to defeat any security measure you employ, with tools from the hardware store or his shop. He will not be fooled by signs about killer bees, as was stated. You have no way of tracking these hives once they are moved, unless you could hide some form of gps tracking device within the comb of one of the frames, where it would remain undiscovered. At best, locking the hive down could slow the thief or encourage them to look for an easier target.
So location is the first key. Put your hives where nobody will know they are located. Way off the beaten path. Or...put them right in the backyard in a neighborhood where everybody can watch them for you, and the dog can warn you if they are being stolen at night.
Branding...Why brand equipment? Hopefully, the thief will try to sell your equipment, and someone will recognize and report your brand. But what if he never let's anyone else see the equipment, running it in his own yard? Pointless to brand in that case.
And what are you going to brand? If you brand the box, a thief can sand the box down, putty the branding, and then paint. you can brand each frame. Maybe that would effectively deter a thief if he were to look inside the hive before stealing it.
I think the best idea is to use a game camera. You can get a decent game camera pretty cheap now. Get a few cameras that are motion activated, and set them up. If anybody comes calling, you can get them on camera down the path, coming and going. Get a license number. If I were going to spend money to secure hives, that's what I would do. If I could hide a camera well, by the path, I might even post a sign near the hives telling a would-be thief that I have multiple cameras on property and that they are already caught on camera. This would be a strong encouragement for them to leave my equipment alone.
I have a wood burner, which wasn't as expensive as a brand. I wrote my number inside each box, under each box, and on each frame, and then painted them on the lid and outside. It only took me a few minutes by hand, and the wood smelled nice anyway.
Someone could certainly sand everything off, but it would be awkward for them without taking the boxes completely apart, and I put my brand on the more delicate parts of the half-frames I use so that sanding them roughly has a good chance of destroying them.
Probably would never be relevant, but my boxes are also branded inside the joints I nailed - which is much less likely to get found, but would be good for proving a box is mine.
We had a police officer Beek that was caught because he stole hives from a state run program that had branded the sides of the frames. They didn't even know they were stolen. He just took a couple of hives from each site and they didn't realize it. The bee inspector saw the brands during an inspection. He didn't say anything and started an investigation.
Jim
Thank you all!
I keep just a few hives. I use a wood burner I got at Harbor Freight for around $6 to burn in my brand, which is my initials in a distinctive pattern on the boxes and frames. My state registration number is on the boxes.
The initial chore took some time, but I now only have to use it occasionally as I add or replace parts.
One of these could be handy http://www.save-bees.com/en/save-bees-products-2/beehive-anti-theft-tracking-device/ (http://www.save-bees.com/en/save-bees-products-2/beehive-anti-theft-tracking-device/)
Probably too dear for every hive in the apiary but place one in one or two hives, assuming the thieves nick the lot then they'll take it with them. Beauty is that there's a movement sensor, so you get the warning straight away or if in a very remote area, as soon as the unit comes within mobile phone range.
Adapted from Mr. Jeff Foxworthy, but very valid out here in the wilds of New Mexico.
"You come up on a house where the grass is this tall, and there's a dog chained to the clothesline, and a motor swinging in the tree, buddy, that's a house where a gun lives! And if you want to find out what kind it is, just try and steal a beehive after dark." :wink:
Identifying hives is not a deterrent to theft, the honey and the bees are transferred to other hives of the thief and the boxes are burned. So ends the tracking with the brand. The value of honey and bees is what makes them stealable. Anchoring is not feasible in big numbers, 140 hives went in one go in spring.
Many are using security cameras to try to identify the culprits, about $70 -100 US will get you a reasonable unit.