Binoculars for bee watching

how close to the bees do you want to be? or distance away..

Maybee 10’ away.. They don’t seem to notice me there and I enjoy watching, but my eyesight is poor.

what kind of budget are you looking at? that will make a huge difference on what you can get..

roadkillbobb said:

what kind of budget are you looking at? that will make a huge difference on what you can get..

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Yeah, I did some online shopping and found quite the price range. So I figured that somebody out there might have personal experience .

vortex makes some really nice scopes and binoculars....they are about the cheapest but great quality...

I have several different pairs of really good binoculars but when I finally looked through a set of Vortex binoculars, I bought them anyhow.They were Vortex upper tier binocs but they are my favorites for clear vision during my deer hunting days. I now have several Vortex scopes on my hunting and target rifles. My cousin looked through my binocs and immediately bought a pair.

vortex has the same lifetime warranty like leupold scopes ..

True. I dropped my binoculars and bent the eye pieces.It was a year before I decided to return them to Vortex.First I emailed them and told them what I did and was needed them before hunting season.They sent me a slip to send them in and I recieved them back in less then a week. They replaced the eye pieces and tested them out,replaced the gas and cleaned them up.They paid shipping too.

I may try my older 35mm SLR camera. It has a nice telephoto lens that will get me in close and I ain’t using it for anything else.

I'm lost. Why do you want to be 10 feet away from your bees in order to watch them? I often times just put my head gear on and sit or kneel beside their hive and watch them. They could care less if I am there or not. They just go about their business of being happy bees. The wife and I even have our own chairs out there that we can use often to sit and watch. It's relaxing.

Wil said:

I'm lost. Why do you want to be 10 feet away from your bees in order to watch them? I often times just put my head gear on and sit or kneel beside their hive and watch them. They could care less if I am there or not. They just go about their business of being happy bees. The wife and I even have our own chairs out there that we can use often to sit and watch. It's relaxing.

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Sounds good Wil. I had read several places that you should leave your bees alone and my eyes rather suck so I was trying to strike a compromise between my curiosity and what I had read.

I think they mean about going into the boxes so often. I think my bees look for me to be there and just watching what they do. I know they won't leave me alone when I am sitting at the picnic table by the pond.

it depends on what type of bees your watching...honey bees you can get somewhat close..yellow jackets and wasps..not so much....lol

You can say that again!

Ive been chased many hundreds of feet from pissed off yellow jackets....I guess rototilling their ground nests could do that..lol and by wasps or hornets from brushhogging their nests in low bushes....you never see the nests but you definitely feel the first few stings...

Earldw said:

Sounds good Wil. I had read several places that you should leave your bees alone and my eyes rather suck so I was trying to strike a compromise between my curiosity and what I had read.

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Also, if you want to identify native bees without catching them, they do not like you to get too close. Honey bees are much more tolerant.

Thanks everyone. I’m like a new parent right now worried that I’m gonna screw up my kids, but they pay me zero attention sitting beside the hive.

Just stay out of the flight path...

I can mow and weed wack around my hives.

how close to the bees do you want to be? or distance away..