> Horses are nosey.  Put a fence around the bee hives with enough distance
> between the bee hive entrance and the fence to where the bees will not
> see the horses as a threat.
 
And some horses like to eat wood ('crib').  Moreover horses like sweets.
I've had beehives 'eaten' by horses during winter when the bees were
either too cold to react or already dead.
 
Of course the horse(s) did not eat the whole thing down to the
floorboard, nails and all, but did knock the lids off by chewing on them,
and then eat parts of some frames, including honey.  They then
proceeded to walk on what they did not eat.  Needless to say the hives in
question were dead by the time I heard about it.
 
It does not take much barbed wire to stop a horse.  Horses hate wire and a
few strands will work -- not like bears which need thousands of volts on
the wire to keep them out.  Bears can make short work of a beeyard.
 
Coyotes are a different and rare problem.  I had a friend who lost hives
to a coyote pack that discovered honey after they were mousing near some
bees in winter and got into the (wrapped) hives somehow.
 
And while were're on this, I had the handholes pecked out of quite a few
 (unwrapped) hives on several locations by a woodpecker one winter.
Guess he (maybe she) could hear the bees inside and found the handhole a
convenient place to work since the wood is thinner there.
 
Allen