A.Tertyshny, Y. Borodin

Kharkov State Zooveterinary Academy

The European bee-eater and protection of apiaries from them

The European Bee-eater (Merops apiaster L.) is a small richly-coloured bird that eats, as its name suggests, various insects, including bees wasps and hornets, which it catches only in the air.

The bee-eaters are gregarious birds. Those nesting in South-Western Europe and Northern Africa and migrate for wintering to Western Africa. The colonies of bee-eaters nesting in South-Eastern Europe, Asia and Southern Africa migrate and winter in Eastern Africa (Fig. 1) (P.Briketti. Birds / Guide. – Moscow: Astrel, 2004. – С. 180; Heinzel H., Fitter R., Parslow J. Guide Heinzel des Oiseaux d’Europe. – Paris : Delachaux et Niestlé, 2005. – P. 222-223; Encycopaedia «Animal world» / Translat. from English. – Kiev: Amerkom Ukraine. № 86, 2006. – С. 105-108.).

Nesting places

Wintering places

Fig. 1. Natural habitat of the European bee-eater

The European bee-eaters live in permanent couples. While making court to its partner, a male bee-eater catches an insect and brings its prey to his female as a gift. (Fig. 2). The bee-eaters make their nests in the holes at the depth about 2 meters, which they dig in the precipices. It is interesting to mention that the nest is made of chitin rests of insects. The female lays up to 6 eggs into the nest. The eggs are white rounded, typical for Coraciae.

Fig. 2. The ritual of making court

In some countries (such as France) the European bee-eater is a protected species. In the other countries (Spain, Morocco, Greece, Ukraine) it is considered as a serious vermin for the apiaries and is being exterminated by the apiarists. According to certain authors, the bee-eater can eat about 1000 bees (N.Tihkomirova. Handbook of an apiarist. – Kharkov: Folio-Edinorog, 2002. – P. 492-493, and others) which is an evident overstatement. Many methods for protection of the apiaries from these birds are given in the literature, including exterminating methods: playing a recorded voice of a wounded bee-eater, shooting with a shotgun and destruction of nests, exposing the dead birds on the poles in several places around the apiary, etc.

According to the data we have collected, the damage from bee-eaters is evidently exaggerated. Our observations and calculations have shown that the bee-eaters eat insects in the following proportions: Odonata – 11,3%, Coleoptera – 24,1%, Homoptera – 6,0%, Lepidoptera – 12,8%, Hymenoptera – 36,4%, Diptera – 9,4. At the same time, among Coleoptera there can be found the rests of Сhrysomelidae, among Homoptera – the wheat-bugs Eurigaster integriceps Put., among Lepidoptera – the small whites Pieridae, among Hymenoptera – the bee-eaters Philanthus triangulum F., among Diptera - Asilus germanicus L., that being the different pests.

We have worked out a simple and efficient method of scaring away the European bee-eaters from the apiaries (Fig. 3) (A.Tertyshny, Y.Borodin. Device for scaring away the insectivorous birds from apiaries. Patent of Ukraine № 32458, 2008, bulletin № 9).

Рис. 3. Device for scaring away the European

bee-eaters from apiaries

The device is of red colour and sphere-shaped with stylized eyes painted on the three sides of the sphere. The sphere is suspended in the air above the apiary. With te slightest blow of the wind the sphere oscillates, swings, moves around while scaring the birds away.

During four years of tests there were not a single case registered of a European bee-eaters flying near the apiaries.