The Uninvited Bear
We’ve never had a bear drop by our place. Sure, we’ve heard rumors of them lurking about a mile away, but we assumed they had better options than our house. My neighbor has been running a beehive operation next door for ages without a single bear-related drama, so I I never even thought about needing to protect my hives.
Then came the beekeeping class last weekend. The instructor casually dropped the bombshell: it’s not about *if* a bear will invade your beehive, it’s *when*. That made me start thinking I should look into electric fences, still convinced my hives were as safe. Fast forward to 3 a.m. one night — I woke up, couldn’t go back to sleep, and a bit later grabbed my phone. There it was: a bear on my camera. My heart plummeted faster than a lead balloon. Sleep? Forget it! I spent the rest of the night wondering if my hives were being dismantled into many pieces.
As the sun rose, my husband and I bravely ventured into the backyard in our car to assess the situation — safety first! No bear in sight. To my surprised delight, the damage wasn’t as catastrophic as I braced for. The swarm hive was untouched! It seemed like our furry friend had taken one look at the honey stash, thought, “Meh.”
Soon after we got the hives back together, avoiding an inspection because, let’s be real, they were probably stressed out enough and didn’t need me poking around. A couple of days later, I went back to check the hives that were bumped around. The first hive was only tipped so I wasn’t as worried about this hive. Lo and behold, I spotted the queen — looking fabulous, I must say! In the middle hive, the one that got the worst of it, I’m hoping the queen played a game of hide-and-seek with the me as I did not see her, but I did see some eggs. Were those pre-attack eggs? I’ll have to go back in a few days and see if I can spot the queen or see more eggs. Stay tuned!
BREAKING NEWS! One week post-bear fiasco, I decided to dive into another hive inspection. My first target was the top brood box. Unfortunately no eggs, no queen.
Feeling a little defeated, I ventured down to the lower brood box, and lo and behold, I spotted some eggs! Talk about a mood booster! Just when I was about to surrender, I peeked at one more frame. And guess what? There she was, my fabulous marked queen!
What a relief — all three of my queens made it through the bear showdown!
