From: [log in to unmask]
Dear Bee-Liners:
                This is in response to Liz Day's query regarding the
depredations of bears on bee hives.  It is written somewhat in the heat
of passion (anti-bear passion, that is!), because in the vicinity of St-
Felicien, Que., we have recently lost all but two of the 80 or so
experimental bumblebee hives that we have set out on the lowbush
blueberry fields (fancifully titled by our Trekkified research
assistants with names like "Deep-Space-Nine", "The Neutral Zone", and
"Confederation Space"--in fact one of the Bombus colonies was itself
known as "BORG", but don't ask me why . . .) to at least two bears--the
tracks after the first attack showed that it was an adult and her cub.
(The two colonies that survived were foraging through a window from one
of those cute little shacks that they put up on the blueberry fields
around Lac-St-Jean).
  We speculated long and hard about why the bears weren't rolling around
in agony after so much stinging (in the blueberry fields near St-Felici-
en they were also destroying each and every honeybee hive that they
could find--to the point that the beekeepers eventually gave up and
removed all of their hives)--decided that the most parsimonious explan-
ation has to be that bears actually LIKE pain!  Certainly, they do not
give up once they have acquired a taste for the comb of bees--in fact we
were told that although electric fences work quite well to deter bears
that are not yet initiated in the arts and delights of hive-robbing,
they do nothing to deter an animal whose lust for honey is already
inflamed.  One ingenious suggestion that we heard about was to attach an
opened can of sardines to the wire of the electric fence!  Now THAT,
feeling the way that I do right now, I sure WOULD like to see!!
  The general impression seems to be that the bear problem has become
considerably worse on the blueberry fields, especially in Maine, in
recent years.  What to do about it is problematical--the reactions in
St-Felicien were (a) SHOOT the b......s (we heard about an extraordinary
increase in the number of hunting licences that were confiscated by
officials of the Quebec Ministry of Nat. Res.), or (b) TRAP them (there
were stories of hideous shark-like jaws, placed, so we were told, by
other officials of the Quebec Ministry of Nat. Res.--to the point that
our research assistants were actually scared to go out into the fields!)
but I can't believe that either of these solutions is optimal.
  We ourselves first had to face the problem of bears (and skunks)
attacking bumble bee hives about 15 years ago, when we studying the
effects of forest spraying on forest pollination in New Brunswick.  What
we did then, with excellent results, was to sink lengths of galvanized
stove-pipe deep into the ground.  The colony was set inside the stove-
pipe, which was then covered with a metal roof attached by two clips
(cunningly designed by Mr. Ray Weaver, formerly Chief of the Department
of Zoology shops at University of Toronto) that were so difficult to
undo that even a highly educated Post-Doc found it hard to get them off-
-but such technology would not be practical for protecting the hundreds
of Bombus hives set out on a large blueberry farm.  Anyone know anything
about methods for constructing concrete bunkers!?
  Best regards, Chris Plowright.
 
--
Chris Plowright - via the University of Ottawa
Return addresses: via INTERNET: [log in to unmask]
                  via UUCP    : ...uunet!mitel!cunews!csi2!uplow!chris