INTERSPECIES UNDERSTANDING

When I had dogs and chickens, I let them wander freely near the beehives. There are two schools of thought about bees and other animals (including kids above a certain age):

1. Protectively fence off a small portion of your yard, giving six to eight feet of clearance at the front of the hives. I don't like this solution. While it protects the animals, it makes that much of the yard unusable. If you have chickens, they'll be deprived of the tasty dead and dying bees, and you'll have to keep trimmed the grasses that the chickens normally keep short between hives—a place where you may not want to go with a mower.
2. Let the animals and bees work it out—bees are usually pretty tolerant, unless they feel directly threatened. If, for example, a chicken decides to go up to the front of the hive and pick off returning bees, a guard bee will give a threatening buzz and stingless dive-bomb that most other organisms retreat hurriedly from; if not, it usually doesn't take more than one sting to train any animal or fowl. Or person, for that matter.