Hi all and especially Greg Zujus and Elroy Rogers.  You asked about bees
under powerlines.
 
Between 1972 to 1976 I had eight hives setting beside a high voltage
transmission line.  It was either a three or four wire line but I do not
recall the voltage (425,000v?).  When I say beside the line, I mean in a
line with the outside base of the support towers.  During rainy and foggy
weather the lines would characteristically crackle.  I can't give you a
technical explanation of this crackle but have been told that it is the
result of the interation of the high voltage electricity with the
atmosphere.  The hives were about one third of the distance from one
support tower to the next.  The hives were set on wooden pallets with tall
weeds in close proximity to the pallets.  The weeds were kept cut down to
make it easier to walk around and do maintenance to the hives.  A public
county road lay parallel alongside the transmission line for about five
miles.  I made the following observations of the hives:
 
a.  I always marked the supers from my hives to determine the production of
the hives in three apiaries, only one of which was under the power lines.
I found the hives under the power line to produce as well as the other two
apiaries.
 
b.  I observed that during the main honey in June and July that the bees
leaving the hives to forage walked up the face of the hives (facing south)
and flew up to within five feet or so of the power lines and formed a ten
foot deep by ten or twelve feet wide corridor of flight in both directions
directly under the power lines.  The flew in this manner to the
intersecting county roads at which the split off of the corrifor at right
angles to fly and forage.  I observed this behavior to occur as far as two
and a half miles down the line.
 
c.  When returning from foraging, the bees would reverse their flight path
but at a lower elevation creating a similar flyway corridor approximately
ten feet below the outgoing corridor.  When they reached a point about 100
feet from the hives they dropped down to the top of the tall grass and
returned directly to the landing board of the hives causing little
interference with the outgoing bees.
 
You may recall that some of the queen mating research done in Tucson found
that drones flew some distance from roads on their way to drone
congregation areas.  It was suggested that this has to do with the angles
at which they see things based upon their eye construction.  This may
explain why the bees I observed did not fly over the road, but obviously
preferred a path under the power lines.
 
I have no explanation why the bees were flying directly under the power
lines when there was a cleared road right of way on one side of the line
and a cleared area 125 feet wide paralleling the other side of the line.
 
Dr. Mike Burgett, of Oregon State University, did some research recently
for Bonneville Power in Oregon.  As I recall his presentation at the Oregon
State Beekeepers Conference in November 1997, he said the line was a new
section carrying 1,000,000 volts.  Bonneville was interested in knowing the
potential impact on wildlife, etc.  If I recall correctly, Mike found some
negative impact on colonies sitting directly under the line midway between
the towers but not when the hives were placed 100 yards (I think) to one
side of the line.  He did not make any observations of bee behavior that I
recall.  He measured brood rearing areas and honey production as I recall.
 
He made the remark that one shouldn't put bees under power lines on the
basis of his research.  However, one must consider that the voltage in the
line he tested was I think nearly twice that which most beekeepers would
find in their bee pasture areas.
 
James C. Bach
WSDA State Apiarist
Yakima, Washington
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