Beekeepers typically focus their efforts on wasps and other insects that feed on honey bees; however, it’s also important to recognize four-legged predators such as wild animals that prey upon bees – these animals can often prove quite destructive or even lethal to bee colonies.
Bee-eaters prey upon flying bees and insects, seizing them midflight before crushing their heads to remove stingers, sucking out their guts, and sucking up any internal organs they find inside them. Installing a wire guard at your shelter’s entrance can protect it against these predators.
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Skunks
Skunks love to eat bees and can quickly destroy an entire hive over time. Skunks tend to scratch at the hive entrance to lure out bees that they then devour one by one before chewing their bodies to extract juices and discard their exoskeletons. Some beekeepers recommend placing a nail board in front of their hives as an effective deterrent because this means stretching out their bodies further, thus exposing more soft abdominal skin for bee stings to attack!
Skunks will consume any guard bees that come out to protect the hive. Telltale signs that this has happened include scratch marks on both the bottom board and front of your hive, signs of scat pellets in and around it, dirty tarps in your bee yard and small piles of bee remains near and around it.
Beewolves
Ground-dwelling wasps are predators of any moving creature, with honey bees being their particular favorite prey. They visit beehives to locate honeybees before stalking them until they come within striking range and then attacking!
They approach a beehive and use a stinger to paralyze it before transporting it back to their nest tunnel, where they store up to six paralysed honey bees.
Along with her offspring receiving fresh meat, the bee wolf also gives them what one source calls a “bacterial birthday present.” That’s because she cultivates at the base of her antennae a white paste containing Streptomyces bacteria – used to produce antibiotic, antifungal, and antiparasitic drugs – for them to consume and help combat infections.
Birds
Birds are warm-blooded vertebrates with feathers and wings that feature warm body temperatures. Like reptiles, birds also possess bony skeletons.
Bee-eater birds are aerial hunters that specialize in targeting insects during flight. Their diet typically consists of Hymenoptera (wasps and bees), Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), and Diptera (flies).
Solitary bee houses can be shielded from predators like mice, raccoons and squirrels by positioning it high in your garden or creating an outer barrier of wire mesh at least 3 inches from nesting materials; this should allow dexterous animals such as squirrels to access it but prevent larger predators like bears from reaching it.
Spiders
There are only a handful of spider species known to prey upon bees. Two that may cause bees distress include Pholcus phalangioides – known for creating scruffy webs in homes and closets – and Scotophaeus blackwalli, an agile hunter which prowls walls at night to catch any unwary insects that try to enter our dwellings or cupboards.
Most spiders are carnivorous creatures, hunting insects down with sticky webs or their long front legs to catch and consume prey such as insects. But spiders don’t swallow their prey whole; their chelicerae inject digestive fluids which break up food before swallowing it down whole.
Birds such as robins and great tits often raid beehives for larvae. Robins and great tits in particular often attack these nests to access larvae; their claws allow them to quickly pry open hives in order to access bees within. These birds have even been known to use their tongues against bee stingers to get at larvae inside!
Badgers
Badger predation of bumblebee nests is relatively prevalent, yet has not proven a major factor in population declines. There are various measures available to protect bee colonies from badgers – metal grids or heavy blocks may work best depending on where your colony resides; contact local beekeepers to see which solutions best work in your region.
These stocky animals primarily consume insects and carrion, with bees serving as a particularly delicious treat. Their strong sense of smell allows them to locate them easily, often raiding apiaries for them!
Some beekeepers use honey badgers as “honey guides” in Kalahari environments in order to find natural beehives from which to collect wild honey, although no evidence indicates they actually follow honey badgers directly to beehives; such behavior has only ever been witnessed when mongooses or baboons were nearby.
