Subject: Re: Opposum oproblems?

From: [email-masked] (Pollinator)
Date: 16 Feb 1996 10:28:54 -0500

In article <[email-masked]>, Mike Quimby
<[email-masked]> writes:

>My question is this:   does anyone have problems with opposums messing
>about with hives, similar in manner to skunks?  There was no apparent 
>damage to the hives, and I suspect they were eating the discarded bees
>in the grass in front of the hives.

   I think you are right.  I don't think possums have enough in the brains
department to do any serious damage.  They love sugar though, and are a
perpetual nuisance when feeding.  They seem to get high on it.  Ever seen
a drunk possum?  I've seen them dead, too (with smiles on their faces!).

   Did your dogs take care of the problem?

   Some animal tore up all my feeders in one yard last spring, and left
most of the hives open to the rain, which happened to be a heavy one, and
I lost almost an entire yard.  I think that was more likely a coon or
family of coons.  It was not a bear, because no brood nests were
disturbed.  (We had bears in other areas.)

[email-masked]   Dave Green   PO Box 1200,  Hemingway,  SC   29554

[email-masked]                                   Dave Green
Dave's Pollination Service         Eastern Pollinator Newsletter
PO Box 1200, Hemingway, SC    29554