okay so today I'm showing you a hive box then I put a swarm in on August 4th
today is August 29th and the video sequences that I'm showing here were
taken in on the 28th so just yesterday Brina and pollen it's a healthy colony
but look at the landing board it's got mud and dirt on it and some of the
paint's been scraped off so what's that tell you somebody's visiting this hive
at night and look at this dirt patch underneath you know what that is that's
a skunk so Scott's come to beehives and I thought I had them beat because I
raised my beehives well off the ground and I know that skunks don't want to
expose their underbelly so I thought the problem solved now we have 10 colonies
in this apiary and this one's getting most of the attention so in this video
we're actually gonna see this gunk that's right I'm gonna take closely this
dirt patch you can see the little footprints were all over it so it looks
like he's visiting every night so in this video my plan was to go out at
night and set up a trail cam notice he hasn't been eating underneath of that
colony because that colony let's be honest with sting him silly
now of course my segue here we're just gonna take a look at my sunflower patch
this was videoed yesterday and the sunflowers are coming on strong
everybody's bringing in pollen like crazy this is fantastic we don't want
anything eating our bees right so I decided I'll take a red LED flashlight
and I'm gonna take a Bushnell trophy cam out and I'm gonna set it up and see if I
can't video this gunk guess what happened here he is I went out there
with my red flashlight you can see that center of it spotting on the corn in the
background I was about to set up my trophy cam when what happens the Scout
comes right out of the cornfield goes right up to the hive and starts going to
work on the bees while I'm kneeling down here by the way I'm about ten feet from
this hive I'm in spraying distance from the skunk so I just decided to stay
quiet and because I'm using a red filtered light those gunk has no idea
that I'm even here so what's he doing he walks up to the
hive he vibrates the hive scratches at the bottom scratches at the landing
board then he drops down right away and any beats that come out bees can't
navigate well at night so if they land in the grass he's eating the bees that
land in the grass and that's what we're watching bee lands in the grass he runs
over grabs it and munches it right up there goes another one
he's got one on his tail too so this is important behavior because I want to see
it you know he jumps up here he just
touches the landing board he doesn't spend any time up there he doesn't want
him sting in his face and then look at the little front feet going
he gets that be it rolls around a little bit on the dirt and then he eats it so
this is a male skunk as I said before I'm in squirting
distance so I'm not gonna yell at him or anything but he's very keen very fast
very agile you know we see sky walking around we think they're just waddling
around and they're not very good here he's being stung by a bee thank goodness
and he eats it off of his fur and goes right back into hunting mode so he
disturbs the front the bees fly out this actually should have been the first
sequence because it's when I walked out there and rather than positioned the
trail camera I just turned it on and handheld it and that's how we got the
sequences we have if you want to see what trail camera I'm using or the LED
light it's in the video description this is a behavior I've wanted for a long
look he just touches it really quick the response to the bees is to zoom out and
then they land on the grass then he hunts them down they don't have very
good eyesight except for things that are very close look at him he's scratching
at the bottom of the colony which vibrates it and then you see the
response on the landing board the guard bees come out and the bees are at a big
disadvantage here but because when they fly out they lose their way if you were
in the bee yard as I am here and you use a white flashlight you're a target the
guard bees are gonna go straight at whoever's holding a white flashlight
you're gonna be stung there's no question about it just even walking
through at night with a white light but a red flashlight you can sit right there
and observe everything they don't seem to even know
that you're there unless I made a noise this guy like is clueless that I'm here
he's so focused on the food what should you do about this gunk trap him shoot
him I'm saying no and that's because the number of bees that is actually getting
is not very high this gunk is coaxing the bees out of there but I noticed he's
getting one about every 10 or 15 seconds here and the entire duration from start
to finish of his visit to the Beehive is about 10 minutes so he's not wholesale
eating mouthfuls of bees he's getting them one at a time and he's getting the
guards that fly out he's still got one of his tail there and so it's not like
he's not as devastating as a bunch of Hornets or wasps attacking the colony
for example I didn't go and he backs up waits for one to land in the grass and
he runs up and gets it now sometimes I noticed he's rolling the bees with his
paws at other times he gets him on the blade of grass he just chooses him
straight he doesn't roll him around or kill him first and he chews him right
off of his fur and chews them up and swallows him so he's eating live bees
there does one look at him get it now that when he rolls around a little bit
and then eats right away now because I'm hand holding the trophy camp which
normally would be static mounted we're getting lots of sequence he's got to be
right there now watch he gets all of that gets it on the ground eats it right
away see him chewing so he didn't roll it
first he didn't kill it first little skunk is
tough thanks for watching I hope you learned something no reason to kill his
gunk they kill in ground Yellowjackets and they're our friends overalls hi
cesium is more beneficial than detrimental thanks for watching