Hi:

Over the years, we have seen lots of discussion about bears, bees, and
fences.  The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks has been
working for several years on this problem.  They have produced two videos -
the first shows their original fence designs, the second is supposed to be
the ultimate bear fence - will even keep grizzlies away from a deer carcass
(obtained from a road kill).

We have revamped our web pages and have added videos, including these two
videos on how to build a bear-proof fence around a bee yard - even in dry
climates (see version 2).  Each video is large - about 20 MB, so if you
download from a phone modem, it will take a long time.

Each of the bear videos has been compressed in an ASF format - you need a
media player and the MPG 4 codex (which you can get from the Microsoft
download site).  The compression produces some loss of video quality - but
you can see what you need to see - including watching the bear get zapped
(Video 1).

This is a new venture for us - if the videos don't work, you probably need
to update your media player software. So, try that first before e-mailing
and yelling at us.  If the files download, then the problem is probably
your setup.

We have also posted videos of a trained bee flying through a maze; leaf
cutter bees on a plane that dives and climbs, alternating from near 0
gravity to 1.8s, and other videos.  These are mostly in MPG format.

On another part of the web page, I have posted some PowerPoint files.  They
work under Explorer and Netscape, but not under AOL.  So, I'm going to redo
them as PDF files.  I have no idea how the site will work under Web TV.

We now have two streaming video cams - on fast connections, you can see the
bees appear to run or fly by.  On a phone modem, you will get one image
every 4-6 seconds - but the cameras are shooting 15 frames/second.

Our new site is not finished, but we wanted to make these videos available
now - it may save some colonies.  If you encounter bugs, errors, or typos;
please let us know.  We will fix them; we want to produce a useful site
that works well.
Jerry J. Bromenshenk, Ph.D.
Director, DOE/EPSCoR & Montana Organization for Research in Energy
The University of Montana-Missoula
Missoula, MT  59812-1002
E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel:  406-243-5648
Fax:  406-243-4184
http://www.umt.edu/biology/more
http://www.umt.edu/biology/bees