# Bees and Goats



## MissMiniNubian (Jan 20, 2021)

Guess what? We are planning on getting some bees soon so that we can have own honey! 🍯🐝Yay! We were wondering if the bees would bother our goats? Does anyone have any experience with that? Or should we not worry about it.

Thanks in advance!


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## Cedarwinds Farm (Dec 2, 2019)

As long as your beehives are not really close to your goat pen, they should be just fine together. My sister keeps bees within a few yards of one of my goat pastures, and I have never noticed any issues. Honey bees are usually very gentle.


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## happybleats (Sep 12, 2010)

Its ok if as suggested have far them away from the goats. There has been cases of goats getting too close and being stung multiple times. One little one got stuck in the fence..the stings were so many he nearly died of anaphylactic shock. Keep epinephrine handy or a bottle of Benadryl on hand.


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## MidnightRavenFarm (Jun 4, 2020)

We just got Italian bees and they are so docile. They don’t bug the chickens or the goats. They will come sit on your hand


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## MissMiniNubian (Jan 20, 2021)

MidnightRavenFarm said:


> We just got Italian bees and they are so docile. They don’t bug the chickens or the goats. They will come sit on your hand
> View attachment 209276


Wow! That’s so cool!😃


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## MellonFriend (Aug 8, 2017)

Congratulations on becoming a beekeeper! You are going to love honey!

My sister's bee yard is right outside one of my goat pastures. The hives are facing away from the pasture so the goats aren't in the direct flight path of the bees.

If you are interested, my sister is on the forum Bee Master which has been a great help to her. She's also on the World Wide Beekeeping forum.


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## MissMiniNubian (Jan 20, 2021)

MellonFriend said:


> Congratulations on becoming a beekeeper! You are going to love honey!
> 
> My sister's bee yard is right outside one of my goat pastures. The hives are facing away from the pasture so the goats aren't in the direct flight path of the bees.
> 
> If you are interested, my sister is the forum Bee Master which has been a great help to her. She's also on the World Wide Beekeeping forum.


Thanks for letting me know about those forums!


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## JML Farms (Jan 1, 2021)

I have kept bees for years. Please do lots of education and research before getting bees. Take some beekeeping classes, visit with local beekeepers, even visit an apiary if possible. I say all this to say beekeeping is a lot like raising goats. There are lots of variables that determine your success or failure, pleasure or heartache, profit or loss. As far as keeping bees near goats, one of the main concerns is the goats jumping on the hives and otherwise disturbing the bees which will affect both their production and attitude. Something I am battling here in Texas is my gentle bees becoming "Africanized". This occurs when an Africanized swarm moves in, kills my queen, and takes over my hive. It can also occur when a virgin queen goes on her mating flight. She will mate with several drones on that flight and will use their sperm throughout the course of her life. The sperm is stored in "layers" and as the queen releases an egg, it passes through the layer of sperm. That is why a hive can seemingly be a totally different hive in a few weeks time....they go through stages where the genetics are from different daddys. If she mates with an African drone, all the eggs fertilized by that sperm will be very aggressive. The aggressive trait is the dominate trait. All this being said, I have had "Africanized" hives that would become very defensive even when the goats were a long way off. Also, when I encounter those hives, they remain highly agitated and will chase me for a quarter mile and willingly attack any poor goat in their path. I now keep the goats far away from the bees when I work them or harvest honey. It is important that I requeen regularly to keep my bees gentle and my goats safe. As far as being deadly, I think the amount of bee venom required to kill is seven stings per pound, that is of course if you aren't allergic. Sounds like you're on the right path! Good luck.


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## MissMiniNubian (Jan 20, 2021)

JML Farms said:


> I have kept bees for years. Please do lots of education and research before getting bees. Take some beekeeping classes, visit with local beekeepers, even visit an apiary if possible. I say all this to say beekeeping is a lot like raising goats. There are lots of variables that determine your success or failure, pleasure or heartache, profit or loss. As far as keeping bees near goats, one of the main concerns is the goats jumping on the hives and otherwise disturbing the bees which will affect both their production and attitude. Something I am battling here in Texas is my gentle bees becoming "Africanized". This occurs when an Africanized swarm moves in, kills my queen, and takes over my hive. It can also occur when a virgin queen goes on her mating flight. She will mate with several drones on that flight and will use their sperm throughout the course of her life. The sperm is stored in "layers" and as the queen releases an egg, it passes through the layer of sperm. That is why a hive can seemingly be a totally different hive in a few weeks time....they go through stages where the genetics are from different daddys. If she mates with an African drone, all the eggs fertilized by that sperm will be very aggressive. The aggressive trait is the dominate trait. All this being said, I have had "Africanized" hives that would become very defensive even when the goats were a long way off. Also, when I encounter those hives, they remain highly agitated and will chase me for a quarter mile and willingly attack any poor goat in their path. I now keep the goats far away from the bees when I work them or harvest honey. It is important that I requeen regularly to keep my bees gentle and my goats safe. As far as being deadly, I think the amount of bee venom required to kill is seven stings per pound, that is of course if you aren't allergic. Sounds like you're on the right path! Good luck.


Thanks so much for that info!


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## Calistar (Jan 16, 2017)

Some of my mom's beehives are like 3 feet away from my goat pens. Not really ideal, but it's where the orchard is so that's where we've got them. It's been 3 or 4 years and I've only had 2 occasions where a goat has been stung, both very mild cases, just a kick and a jump pretty much. The only thing I'd caution is that if you use those natural fly sprays on your goats, the lemon grass in them does attract bees. Learned that one the hard way when I sprayed one of my does on a hot day when the bees were active! She wasn't stung, but she had 5 bees instantly land on her and I think it weirded her out 😋 For the most part the bees are very docile.


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## Nashville Nancy (Feb 11, 2021)

Great advice here. I also have bees and goats. No problems. But a few things to keep in mind......as stated, don't have the entrance to the bee hive facing the goat area. Bees will come and go and there can easily be 10,000 bees in a hive. Don't have the hives in the pasture with the goats, it should be located in an area that gets very little travel. And bees need water so if your goats watering buckets are all they can find, they will congregate there if you have a dry climate or on hot days. Add a bird bath away from the goats but not far from the hive.


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## MissMiniNubian (Jan 20, 2021)

Nashville Nancy said:


> Great advice here. I also have bees and goats. No problems. But a few things to keep in mind......as stated, don't have the entrance to the bee hive facing the goat area. Bees will come and go and there can easily be 10,000 bees in a hive. Don't have the hives in the pasture with the goats, it should be located in an area that gets very little travel. And bees need water so if your goats watering buckets are all they can find, they will congregate there if you have a dry climate or on hot days. Add a bird bath away from the goats but not far from the hive.


Got it, thanks!


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## toth boer goats (Jul 20, 2008)

Each year, my neighbor had bee’s come in to pollinate the almond tree’s. He is a distance away and I hate the bee’s.

Many of those bee’s, go to the goats water and some float in there and drown.

When my goats try to get a drink of water, the bee’s are flying around there and some of my goats are getting stung. 
It is a miserable time and when I clean out the trough, the bee’s are quite aggressive with me.


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## MissMiniNubian (Jan 20, 2021)

toth boer goats said:


> Each year, my neighbor had bee’s come in to pollinate the almond tree’s. He is a distance away and I hate the bee’s.
> 
> Many of those bee’s, go to the goats water and some float in there and drown.
> 
> ...


Hmm, we’ll be sure to put a birdbath near the hive and luckily we are getting Italian bees so I think they’re more docile.😉


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## Nashville Nancy (Feb 11, 2021)

Many of those bee’s, go to the goats water and some float in there and drown.



It sounds like they are very thirsty. Try setting out a cheap bird bath, or make something similar and keep water in it. I've seen inexpensive little fountains that float in the water and spray a bit of it into the air, working from a small solar panel. This will attract the bees....they will see the spraying water and are more likely to leave the goat's water alone. Put a few stones in the water so that they can land there and walk down to the edge of the water to drink and not drown. This might be what is causing the bees to be more aggressive near the water you have......they can't access the water without possibly drowning and they are very thirsty. Might give it a try?


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## toth boer goats (Jul 20, 2008)

Thanks for the advice, worth a try.


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## AndersonRanch (Oct 18, 2020)

I don’t own bees but I let a bee keeper store their bees here when they are no longer needed on orchards. A few keepers ago they had seriously mean bees! We finally had to ask them to take them away and not come back. The ones we have now are annoying docile. Docile enough that the cows would get to rubbing on the boxes and destroy them because they did nothing to the cows. They love the goats protein tubs and the chickens scratch (for some reason) and have never had one stung. The horses are semi close to where they keep them and we did have issues with them getting in the troughs and then getting on the horses noses to get out, which of course the horses were not fans of. That was a easy fix though I just put small blocks of wood in the troughs so they can climb out. But as long as they are not mean I say they are so worth it! We trade with the keeper and get all the honey we want and I am thrilled with the arrangement. Plus it bugs my one annoying city neighbor so bonus points for that lol


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## MissMiniNubian (Jan 20, 2021)

AndersonRanch said:


> I don’t own bees but I let a bee keeper store their bees here when they are no longer needed on orchards. A few keepers ago they had seriously mean bees! We finally had to ask them to take them away and not come back. The ones we have now are annoying docile. Docile enough that the cows would get to rubbing on the boxes and destroy them because they did nothing to the cows. They love the goats protein tubs and the chickens scratch (for some reason) and have never had one stung. The horses are semi close to where they keep them and we did have issues with them getting in the troughs and then getting on the horses noses to get out, which of course the horses were not fans of. That was a easy fix though I just put small blocks of wood in the troughs so they can climb out. But as long as they are not mean I say they are so worth it! We trade with the keeper and get all the honey we want and I am thrilled with the arrangement. Plus it bugs my one annoying city neighbor so bonus points for that lol


Ooh...I can’t WAIT to have our own honey. We have a neighbor right next to us who used to share his honey with us and we’d give them a couple dozen farm-fresh eggs in return. Well, we just gave them another four dozen eggs about two or three weeks ago and mentioned that we’d love some of his honey again, because he hadn’t been giving it to us in a while. He said “sure, I’ll give some to you as soon as the bees make honey.” ...We saw him harvest his honey over two weeks ago and he hasn’t said a word. So we got tired of waiting ( and tired of their rudeness, basically) and thought, ‘if he can raise his own honeybees, why can’t we?’ Plus, we have so many fruit trees in bloom which would be great for our honey too...which his bees also feed from. He doesn’t have much of a garden so the least he could do is give us some honey since we provide a wonderful garden for the bees. But that doesn’t matter now since we will have our own.😉 Now we won’t have any reason to give him our eggs.😄


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## MellonFriend (Aug 8, 2017)

With my sisters eight hives we have never had a problem with the bees going after the goats water or being a bother to the goats at all. We do have easy water sources for our bees though. Bees actually prefer dirty water so if you put out a water source that is dirtier than the goats' water they should go to that instead.


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## MissMiniNubian (Jan 20, 2021)

MellonFriend said:


> With my sisters eight hives we have never had a problem with the bees going after the goats water or being a bother to the goats at all. We do have easy water sources for our bees though. Bees actually prefer dirty water so if you put out a water source that is dirtier than the goats' water they should go to that instead.


Interesting!


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## toth boer goats (Jul 20, 2008)

The bee’s which are dropped off for pollination at our neighbors have no water because the bee keeper don’t leave any. 

So they come to the only source, my goats clean water trough, so yes, they are very thirsty. 
My husband puts in sticks to help them but, they still manage to get into the water and drownunless my husband sees them and he recuses them.

If the bee keeper does not change out the queen periodically, the hive of bees, get more aggressive. So be careful.
My husband and I were bee keepers at one time.
My poor goats suffer with stings, I truly hate it, they try to drink and get stung on their mouth, nose and around their eyes.


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## Nashville Nancy (Feb 11, 2021)

It sounds like you are very experienced with bees....I'm so sorry you are having such trouble with them around your goats waterers. Another thing to try......I've seen people use poultry waterers for bees in such cases. If you are around almond trees it is probably very hot and dusty with no water anywhere. You can fill up a poultry waterer with almost 5 gallons of water and it will give the bees a place to go and you don't have to keep such a close eye on refilling it, plus it would not be so deep in water that the bees would drown. You may have thought of this before but I really feel for you!


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## MellonFriend (Aug 8, 2017)

That is a great idea, Nancy! 
Put some rocks in the tray so they don't drown and seriously, make the water dirty. Bees have been studied to prefer dirty water.


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## luvmyherd (Apr 9, 2011)

I know I am repeating what others have said but we love our bees and our honey. We put the boxes in a pen that is beside the pasture. The goats never had a problem with the bees but we had to make sure they could not get in the pen as they would knock the hives over.
It is also important to give them their own water; though ours still seem to prefer the cat's water and the swimming pool.
Best of luck to you and your hives!


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## MissMiniNubian (Jan 20, 2021)

luvmyherd said:


> I know I am repeating what others have said but we love our bees and our honey. We put the boxes in a pen that is beside the pasture. The goats never had a problem with the bees but we had to make sure they could not get in the pen as they would knock the hives over.
> It is also important to give them their own water; though ours still seem to prefer the cat's water and the swimming pool.
> Best of luck to you and your hives!


Thank you! Unless you meant someone else LOL


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## luvmyherd (Apr 9, 2011)

I meant you.
But I do wish anyone with bees good luck.


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## toth boer goats (Jul 20, 2008)

Thanks for the tips. 
It does help us all in these situations, glad it was brought up.


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