As summer drifts into fall, I
spend more time thinking about our honeybees, so I thought you might like
to hear a followup on how they're doing in
the chicken pasture.
I'll start with the one
small con --- if given the chance, chickens will scratch a kill mulch
to bits. That said, they didn't tear up much of the cardboard
around the hive, so weeds still stayed down. And my management
technique of mowing
each pasture as soon as I rotated chickens out of it meant that the flight path
in front of the hive stayed clearer than ever before.
Otherwise, the bees and
chickens coexisted quite peacefully. I didn't see any sign of
chickens either being stung by the bees or trying to eat them --- the
birds mostly just ignored the hive, and the honeybees followed suit.
My conclusion is that if
you want to diversify your homestead but have limited space, there's
nothing to lose from locating the hive in the chicken pasture.
Now we get honey and eggs from the same space!
Our chicken waterer keeps the flock hydrated
after a long day pecking through the weeds.
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