> If you keep bees in an area where they are likely to be 'upset' by
> skunks, you have not done your 'homework' and are totally to blame
> for any incedent that ensues.

I guess the key here is the "likely to be 'upset' by skunks" part.
Presence of skunks does not necessarily mean problems.

Years ago, we had some problems with skunks, but in recent years, we
have had very little.  I see skunks of all ages around the yard and
drinking at our pond, yet we seldom see much scratching at the hives.
For one thing, we've learned to put on enough boxes early enough to
forestall spring crowding and consequent 'hanging out' early in the
season.

We even ran a mating yard with hundreds of baby nucs a few years back,
and still no problem.  My wife talks to the skunks when she is working
in the garden (she talks to *everything*).  Maybe that's the secret.  I
sure don't know.

Keeping mice from around the hives helps, since skunks are mousers, and
will dig and tear up winter wraps seeking mice if they smell them, then
get interested in the bees.  If the bees are tearing out brood and
throwing it onto the stoop (disease, starvation, etc.) what skunk can
resist such a delicacy, if skunk food is not plentiful elsewhere?  For
that matter, simply feeding skunks dog or cat food will distract them
from your hives, if they have not gotten habituated to beehives, but
don't let your neighbours see you doing that.

At any rate the one lesson I have learned in beekeeping is that anything
that is true right here about bees could easily be *not true* a few
hundred miles away.  Beekeeping is full of apparent anomalies and local
effects.  That is the one constant on this list and possibly the main
obstacle to beekeepers believing one another's stories.

Jerry B reported a documanted  anomaly in regard to bees going/not going
through pollen scrapers, I saw that in terms of temprament when moving
bees from Ontario to Alberta, and Dewey Caron reported something
interesting in that regard at a recent meeting I attended.  There are
tons of tales in the archives.

As for what Dr. Caron's comment, what I heard was something like this:

AHB cannot be 'Europeanised', and displace EHB pretty well everywhere
they go, BUT, they behave very differently in different climates and
*can* be bred and modified in temperate regions.

What he had though for certain were EHB at higher elevations in
Boliva -- areas similar in climate to northern areas of North America --
by their calm and familiarly domestic behaviour, turned out to be AHB
when analysed using DNA samples.

He projects that AHB will eventually be found living peacefully in
managed hives as far north as British Columbia, Canada, but they will
behave much like EHB -- assuming I understood him.

I bought his book, 'Africanized Bees in the Americas', and have managed
to get around to reading about half of the preface so far.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of
in your philosophy".
Thinking that this should be the new BEE-L motto.

allen
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/