I think there's a lot of myths about horses and bees and bee stings.
Unfortunately, at least one US insurance company believes them.
In eastern MT, we had a large commercial beekeeper who never fenced
apiaries on rangeland. Cows rubbed on boxes and knocked over a few - but he
observed that one time was all it took for the cows to learn to use something
else, even if there weren't a lot of trees and other vertical things on our
semi-arid grassslands to rub against to relieve an itch. He decided it was
cheaper to lose a few hives than to build fences.
Several of the ranchers in his area of operation raised horses, and I never
heard of a horse 'dying' from bee stings, nor did they stay away from the
hives. I've watched them check out hives when first brought in - usually
got a sting or two, and ran off.
I do know of cases in which horses found that in the winter, beehives had
lots of good, crunchy sweetness. The horses were as bad as bears, knocking
covers off and pulling out frames. Cold weather would have reduced the
stings, but I assume they got stung. Based on the damage, it appears that the
horses would drop the honey combs when stung, but come back in a day or two
when the bees had frozen off, and finish the snack. The same horses left
the hives alone in the summer. My guess, that reward was sufficient to put
up with a few stings in the winter, but a hive lots of guard bees in the
summer was more than they wanted to put up with.
A few years ago in the western US, two horses were put down by a vet after
they were stung by lots of bees. In this case, someone tied the horses up
next to hives, then left them. One must have knocked over a hive, the
bees attacked, the horses in their panic knocked over more hives - couldn't
run away. I've often wondered whether the horses might not have recovered,
if the vet hadn't finished them off. Of course, separating the downed
horses and the bees would have been difficult.
As others have mentioned, beekeepers used to harvest honey using horses.
It is my understanding that the beekeepers put canvas covers over the backs
of the horses, would use the team to pull an empty wagon into the yard,
unhitch, take the horses off to the side (tie them up in the shade under a
tree), then pull the honey supers and load the wagon. When the beekeepers
were done, and the bees settled down, they'd go get the horse team to pull
the wagon home.
I also find it hard to believe a bee sting or two would be of any
significant harm to a horse, unless horses, like people sometimes are allergic.
I've seen cows bit by rattlesnakes. They puff up at the bite site, but
don't usually die. Cows and horses have a LOT of body mass compared to the
amount of venom. If cows can shrug off snake bites, seems unlikely that a
few bee stings will kill a horse. Every documented case I've found where a
horse was supposedly killed by bee stings involved horses that couldn't
get away, or horses that hurt themselves galloping away, or a vet pulled the
plug assuming the horse couldn't survive.
Jerry
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