Wisconsin warre attacked by bear

[pelz]

sneaky bear, sometime between 3 and 5:30 mid afternoon, like 99 degrees out, he should have been in the shade instead. My area has occasional bear sightings and figured I would have to prepare for it in the future, it just came earlier than i thought, colony was in two box hive and was filling the top box, it was a swarm i caught may 1st, they have been slow to take off but i never fed them a thing and was letting them do their thing. top box carried into the woods twenty yards, found some empty bars, broken brood comb and three pretty full bars , heavy and a bit messed up, cleaned as much leaves and junk off them and placed them back in box as best i could. i was surprised they held together. a few chunks were salvaged from the ground for me. ground sticky and several small groups of bees. before i recovered the box from the woods i saw many bees at another hive entrance, i thought maybe it was the busted up hives bees trying to get in another hive, so i reset the bottom box over a bunch of bees on bottom and went to recover the top box, when i came back just a few minutes later all that ruckus at the other hive was over and there was a lot of buzzing in the bottom box. Do you suppose they reoccupied as soon as i set it up ? I spent the next two hours setting up electric fence, it was good to have all the supplies on hand, I will have to read more on bear fencing, I know it will return.

what should i look for as far as the colony is concerned, if its got a queen yet or not?

i guess i join the bush from brainerd in bear trouble category.

[beedeetee]

I dealt with this about a month ago. First I made sure the the brood frames left had eggs and very young larva. Then after a couple of days I checked to see if they had started queen cells. They had. I now have a new queen in that hive.

[Bush_84]

Ya it sounds like you read about my ordeal, but my have had a nice sizable cluster at the hive location. About the size of a volleyball maybe a tish smaller. I attached what comb I had left (very little) and shook all the bees in. I made sure they had some feed. After about a week I did as beedeetee did and checked them out. I have half frames so I had some inspectability. I saw eggs and a queen so I am good to go. If you cannot remove any comb then look for queen cells. I would say that it is likely that they will have some partial comb that should be removable easily enough. It's really the fully drawn comb that is impossible. If you can see eggs then you are in business. Hope that helps!

[Adrian Quiney WI]

I couldn't sleep the first year of beekeeping - worried about bears in my neighborhood. The second year I spent $200 at Fleetfarm on a standard 120v energizer and then trenched the power about 100 feet up a hill from my shed to my beeyard. The best money I have spent. I came back from a vacation two years ago and there was a bear on my trailcam, but my beeyard was untouched. I sleep better, but I still worry and every morning I check all is intact. Bears are one of the reasons I haven't got an outyard yet, I'd have to buy another bear fence.

[Trapfox1]

I have had constant bear problems. This year (after the second attack) I took a friend's advice and contacted APHIS. This is a division of the USDA. They are kind of the "bad bear, bad wolf" people. A field agent came to my bee yard to inspect and gave all kinds of good advice. First, I was only running three wires - they recommend 4 wires. I had a battery powered fencer that put out 3500 volts. This is the minimum recommended. Probably not enough for my bear. Now for the cool part. I signed up for a program where they "lend" you a solar powered fencer and all the fencing supplies . The fencer they gave me is putting out 10,000 volts - no bear problems since, and I have seen them on the trail cameras. APHIS has two programs - both get you the fencer and supplies - FREE. You DO NOT have to be a commercial operator - no minimum number of hives required. NO history of bear problems required - just the chance that there may be an attack. With the first program, you get the supplies, but if a bear does get through it is your loss. If it is a problem bear they will bring a culvert trap and remove it (the bear). The other program (the one I signed up for) reimburses you for damages with a $500.00 dedictible. To be on this program, you must let at least one bear hunter on your land during bear season. They still come to remove problem bears outside of hunting season. No problem for me because I actually advertised for bear hunters a couple of years ago. I contacted APHIS through the Rhinelander DNR field office. I think they have guys at all the DNR field offices in the state.