Subject: Re: What do I do about skunks?

From: [email-masked] (Rick Hough)
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 1994 13:27:21 -0500

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]
(BEVERLY SEAVEY) wrote:

> This morning there were a lot of my bees by the door of the hive, all uupset.
> I had noticed skunk smell all night. In the ABC to XYZ book, it says that
> skunks eat bees!!! How do I get rid of these skunks?

A couple of tricks I have heard about, but have not had to test out myself:

1) Put the hives on taller hive stands, so the skunks can't reach. I would
guess that this has a couple of problems - skunks can climb, skunks can be
rather tall when they stand on their hind legs, it can be hard to remove
supers from the top of the hive.

2) Place something in front of the hive that the skunks will not walk on.
I've heard of driving nails through a board so they protrude from the back
side, and then leaving the boards, nails up, in front of the hive. Knowing
me, I would forget about the darn board, and step on it myself! I'm not
sure
if it works, but I've heard that some animals don't like to walk on chicken
wire when it is laid flat on the ground.

3) Put up a fence around the hives. This can be a lot of work, and skunks
can dig, so the fence needs to go below the surface a bit.

4) Sprinkle liberal amounts of pepper, or other hot spice on the ground
in front of the hive entrance. The theory on this one is that the skunk
will walk on the pepper, get pepper on it's paws, and get some of the
pepper
when it eats the bees. "Hmm, these bees don't taste so good..." and the
skunk leaves your bees alone.

5) Trap the skunk & move it elsewhere. This one has certain obvious risks.

As I said above, I can't vouch for the effectiveness of any of these,
but I'm sure others will have some comments of their own!

Oh yah - I almost forgot the relatively sure fix - a rifle.

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* Rick Hough             * email: [email-masked] *
* TASC                   * Phone: (617) 942-2000   *
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SET DISCLAIMER ON
The above is my opinion, and not my employer's or anyone else's.

---

From: [email-masked] (John E. Taylor III)
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 1994 12:35:14 -0400

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]

> supers from the top of the hive.

According to what I've read, the advantage of raising the hive to about 18
- 24 inches is that the skunk has to stretch upward to hassle the hive,
leaving his underbelly exposed to the bees.  Apparently they're much more
effective there than trying to get through his back fur.

--
John Taylor    (W3ZID)     |  "The opinions expressed are those of the
[email-masked] |   writer and not of Rohm and Haas Company."