Bat Houses and Bee Hives?

Started by jeremy_c, June 14, 2009, 10:15:23 PM

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jeremy_c

I am curious if they can coexist or will their times of activity intermingle and thus the bats clean up the bees as well as mosquitoes?

Jeremy
Bee section of my blog: http://jeremy.lifewithchrist.org/category/bee-keeping.html ... has stories, pictures and videos of a new beekeeper.

Natalie

I don't have bat houses but there are bats living in the trees in the back of my yard.
I see them flying over when I hang out around the campfire at night but its always well after the bees are back in the hives.
Bats do not come out until after dusk and I have no concerns over them affecting the bees.
In fact, although they may come out earlier I never see them until 9:00 or 10:00 at night.
Who knows, they may even eat insects that are a threat to the bees. At least they keep the mosquito population under control which is so important with the fatal viruses some of the mosquitos are carrying now.
I think they are perfectly able to co exist.

Cheryl

I have bats and bees. Their paths don't cross. Everything is fine in their little worlds.
We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

~ Aristotle

luvin honey

We built bat houses this year, along with hives, to help grow our local bat population. Bats are nocturnal, so I can't imagine a situation where they would eat bees. But, I sure hope they take care of cabbage moths, sweetcorn moths and mosquitos!! :D
The pedigree of honey
Does not concern the bee;
A clover, any time, to him
Is aristocracy.
---Emily Dickinson

achunter

I also have a bat house and i figured I have the bees doing well on the day shift by pollinating flowers and i have the bats doing well on the night shift by eating mosquito's and things of that sort,  i have never seen the bats out while be bees were still out so there is no problem with that 

Eshu

The bat houses I've built don't have the space the bees like for swarms.  I have built houses using this book by Bat Conservation International (see link):

http://www.batcatalog.com/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=193

As for coexisting, as others have said they aren't active at the same time so no problem.

Rebel Rose Apiary

I found a small bat inside of a swarm trap once! The kind of swarm trap that they offer in the supply catalogs. I let him/her go and moved the trap....then someone stole the trap!  :? I now make my own swarm traps and have never had any bats enter into them.

I have quite a few bats flying aorund at night. A few of the smaller bats come out earlier than the larger bats and I have seen a few bees around while the bats were out. The bees are just the last forager bees coming in for the night and I never seen a bat bother them before.

There is my 2 cents worth.

Brenda