Hi Steve. For local conditions, nothing beats having a county Extension Agent who is on the ball. To find out if youall are that lucky, look for the Cooperative Extension Service, listed under USDA (Federal Gov't) in the phone book. From what I have read, an electric fence will work if the bear is just nosing around, but a hungry bear is not deterred by a fence. While you are talking with the agent, ask about indemnification programs. Most states have some kind of compensation if the hive is tattered by a bear. Sometimes all they do is allow you to hunt out of season, but many times they'll pay enough to buy a package. Small compensation, I know, but, like they say, it's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. Maybe somebody reading this board will have some experience with this problem because bears are becoming more common as they adapt to people and we continue to fragment the forests.

A guy a few miles down the road from me had a bear in his "back yard", 20 acres. He has 6 kids a his wife wanted him to kill it immediately but it was only a week till opening day on bear here in WA so he waited and got it opening day, a few hundred feet from the house with his 7mm magnum. It's being made into a rug. A bullet would cost less than a dollar and you could have alot of bear meat.

Thanks for the replies.

Here's a couple of tips I gleaned off the internet:

Helpful to keep away bears - a radio playing in the bee yard.

How to drive away a bear you know is nearby: Attach a tin can with a piece of bacon to your electric fence. Bear will stick tongue into tin can. This reportedly will insure he won't ever come back.

I live between two national forests in East Tennessee, and shooting one bear doesn't get rid of the problem, so I'm looking for around-the-clock deterrents. Looks like electric fence and a radio playing is what I'll be fixing up. Tennessee doesn't indemnify bear damage.

If you have bears in your area, then an electric fence is a necessity, not a nice-to-have. Over the past 10 years and two homes my hives have been hit by bears three times. My current apiary is on my main property, now about 100 yards from the house across a lawn.

The first time at my old house (hives 40 feet from the rear of the house) I didnt have a fence at all and learned a hard lesson. It took two years for a bear to find my hives. When I reported the bear to the police as a courtesy, they notified the State (NH), and Fish & Game sent a specialist that day to set up a loaner fence until I could buy my own. With only two hives at the time, it was a surprising, but welcome, action on the part of my government. They reacted so quickly because, as the specialist predicted, the bear came back that night for seconds. The fence deterred it (and literally shocked the you-know-what out of it, which my dog found and rolled in). It was a simple net fence with a battery-charger, a Hornet, I think it was called, and ran off of either 4 D cells or a deep-cycle marine battery. I immediately bought the same set up. Everything was fine for about five years. Set the fence up in the spring and took it down in the late fall.

The second time a bear hit my hives I was getting ready to move to my new house and decided to be lazy and not set up the fence, since I was moving in a few weeks. Woke up on Memorial Day weekend to find that my hives, now three strong, had been hit. Set up the fence for the remaining few weeks, lesson learned. Mind you, this was the FIRST time I hadnÂt set up the fence since I bought it.

The third time was last summer. I did not know it, but after six years or so the charger had failed (not bad batteries, it stopped working) and a bear hit my hives. Now, I moved over 25 miles away, so this was different bear. When it hit, I was leaving THAT day on a business trip. I called the state and they immediately sent someone over to my empty house to set up a loaner charger until I got back. I canÂt say enough good things about the NH Fish and Game folks. They even offered me compensation for my losses (both times), but I didnÂt take them up on it, since I was just grateful for the help and didnÂt need to have someone else (like other taxpayers) pay for my mistakes.

This time I bought a solar charger, a Fi-Shock SS-440. It is four volts, which sounds small, but it is excellent. It puts out around 5000 volts and has a light on it that flashes with each pulse, so I can tell from a distance, if it is working. Now, I leave my fence up all year round, and the charger worked all winter long, even at temps down to -16F and with snow piled up against the fence. IÂm still using the original net fence I bought. ItÂs 3-feet high (which I can step over without even opening the fence), 75 feet long, and easily contains my six hives. I think the SS-440 is the perfect charger for keeping bears from hives. It cost me $99, including shipping, at www.Mightypets.com. They still have it for that price.

In my experience, which is in a black bear-rich environment, an electric net fence and decent charger are essential, but also sufficient to keep bears at bay. No need to get more exotic. Besides being cheaper, easier to set up and easier to move, a net fence will also keep skunks away from your hives, which can be a problem in some areas. Unless you string it very low, three our four-strand electric fencing wonÂt accomplish that. Bears will get used to radios, lights, etc. Around here they come up onto peopleÂs decks to eat dog food and clean out the grease catchers on grills, so they clearly get used to the sounds and sights of human activity.

HereÂs a tip about electric fencing. If you test it by touching a live wire, you will probably get a zap equivalent to what you get from a static electricity zap from a metal door knob in winter. You might think that in no way is that strong enough to deter a bear. ThatÂs NOT what an animal feels, since it will most likely inspect the fence with its wet nose, while four paws are on the ground. You are almost certainly insulated from the ground by your shoes. Try touching the grass with one hand and then the fence with the other, which I did while repositioning it with the charger still on. You will experience what an animal feels. It wonÂt hurt you, but you wonÂt soon forget the experience.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for your advice, narcnh.

That's a bargain on the solar charger, and for some reason when I had done google searches had never turned that one up. I have included a direct link below.

I notice you used to just use the electric fence from spring through fall. Is this because that's the only time bears usually raid hives?

Yes, I used to only use the fence from spring to fall, which is when bears are most active. But, since bears don't really hibernate and can be active on any warm day during the winter, I now leave the fence up year-round. After three hits, I decided to take the most conservative approach and just leave it up. Believe me, cleaning up thousands of angry bees amid the wreckage of a bear attack is not pleasant. My post was so long that I didn't bother to explain why I changed my practice.

The SS-440 is a real bargain. It is nice and small, too, and can easily be mounted on a fiberglass post. I use a larger solar charger for running three strands of electric fence around my chicken enclosure to keep out coyote, fox, raccoon, etc, and it was a LOT more expensive. In two years it, too, has been 100% effective in controlling predators.