{"id":21265,"date":"2022-06-07T10:23:47","date_gmt":"2022-06-07T14:23:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=21265"},"modified":"2022-08-30T18:34:05","modified_gmt":"2022-08-30T22:34:05","slug":"episode-594-bbees-bears-and-mice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=21265","title":{"rendered":"EPISODE 594 BBEES, BEARS, AND MICE"},"content":{"rendered":"
EPISODE 594      BEES, BEARS, AND MICE<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
alan skeoch<\/div>\n
June 5, 2022<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\"4,610<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
BEEKEEPING \u2026 NOT THAT EASY<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Our son Andrew became a beekeeper this year. And he had<\/div>\n
success .   Two hives became three hives and honey<\/div>\n
production was harvested.   New bee hives\u2026clean homes<\/div>\n
for the Queens and their thousands of worker bees.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
When winter came, Andrew slipped covers over the hives.  <\/div>\n
Nice and warm.<\/div>\n
Tp dissuade skinks and other honey loving wild animals<\/div>\n
he built a ire mesh wall around the bee yard.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
The bees almost made it through the winter.   Almost.<\/div>\n
Spring was on the distant horizon when Andrew found<\/div>\n
one of his hives had been destroyed by a mouse or a<\/div>\n
bunch of mice.  <\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Only one hive survived this attack.  He packed them up<\/div>\n
and moved them into his drive shed.  Away from the bee <\/div>\n
yard which had become a bee cemetery..  But mice found<\/div>\n
the surviving hive and ate his bees and his honey.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
He will not give up.  Three new bee colonies are on<\/div>\n
the way from the United States as I write this sad note.<\/div>\n
Andrew remains optimistic that he can solve the problems<\/div>\n
To assist him he has the advice of Russ Vanstone, a skilled<\/div>\n
bee keeper for decades.  Russ has seen all the problems. No doubt<\/div>\n
when he reads this Episode he will respond with advice and may<\/div>\n
even make location suggestions.   <\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
But I am not too sure that the bee yard can be rescued.<\/div>\n
Bill Brooks,  our nearby farm machine mechanic slipped<\/div>\n
me a copy of the Halton Hills Indpendent and Free Press dated<\/div>\n
May 26, 2022, article by Herb Garbutt.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\u201c\u2026when Ray Lavender went to check on his three hives near<\/div>\n
his house just north of Acton\u201d they had all been nocked over<\/div>\n
and there were large claw marks on them.  Claw marks..big ones.<\/div>\n
A bear had<\/div>\n
dropped by.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
So what?  So the same bear may pay a visit.Andrew\u2019s hives are<\/div>\n
also located just north of  Acton.   The smell of honey could<\/div>\n
bring the bear to Andrew\u2019s bee yard.   And if he moves the<\/div>\n
bee yard close to the barn that would mean big trouble.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
There have been 35 sightings of bears (or a bear) in the<\/div>\n
Guelph regions and 10 of these sightings were close to <\/div>\n
Acton.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Remember the childhood story about Algie?<\/div>\n
\u201cAlgie met a bear<\/div>\n
And the bear was bulge<\/div>\n
And the bulge was Algie\u201d<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
So what should Andrew do if he meets the bear?<\/div>\n
\u201c\u2026slowly back away while watching and waiting for it <\/div>\n
to leave.  If you are near a car or building, get inside\u201d<\/div>\n
Then wait for the bear to leave.  Once gone, remove  the<\/div>\n
food he or she was after.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
One question, I must ask Andrew and Russ: \u201cHow can Andrew be<\/div>\n
sure it was mouse that got his bees.  Might it have been the<\/div>\n
Acton bear?  Bears move around but also stay around.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
I have met quite a few bears in my lifetime.  No trouble.  They<\/div>\n
slip away or are too busy eating blueberries or garbage to<\/div>\n
get aggressive.   Not an animal to pet though.  As a joke my<\/div>\n
friend Wick (Terry Wickstrom) visited an island on Lake of the<\/div>\n
Woods when the kids were small.  \u201cWould you boys like to go<\/div>\n
bear hunting?\u201d  They agreed.  The island was small, perhaps<\/div>\n
a couple of acres.   Forested;  We pretended to hunt a bear.<\/div>\n
Big joke!  At the blueberry patch we found a nice pile of bear<\/div>\n
dung.  Fresh!  FRESH!  A bear was really on the island.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
We backed our way to the boat and got off the island.<\/div>\n
No problem fortunately.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Andrew was small at the time.  He could have become<\/div>\n
Algie, I suppose.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
alan<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EPISODE 594      BEES, BEARS, AND MICE alan skeoch June 5, 2022 BEEKEEPING \u2026 NOT THAT EASY Our son Andrew became a beekeeper this year. And he had success .   Two hives became three hives and honey production was harvested.   New bee hives\u2026clean homes for the Queens and their thousands of worker […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}