Wonder Dog versus Bear, and the winner...

...was the Wonder Dog! In the past 22 years we have lived here, we have never had to contend with a bear. Sadly loss of habitat, a dry summer and them learning to become habituated to humans all are a factor in the recent issues our town is having with bears. My neighbors had a bear hit one of their bee hives, but he was relentless and continued to be a nuisance, leaving us in great fear that our hives and animals were next! On Friday, my neighbor notified me that the bear was back. I have studied wildlife for over 20 years and put those theories into action. I have never actually contended with a bear before in my wildlife career but protecting what is yours kicks in and off Autumn the Wonder Dog and I ran after the bear, razing it until Autumn put it up a tree! This dog is amazing and the best tool we all have around here in protecting the livestock. The picture above is moments before she treed the bear! The last we saw of this bear, after 2 crazy women and a dog ran it off was it's ass end high tailing it out of here! It feared for it's life!

I fired up the smoker and harvested what honey I could pull. So many beekeepers have lost their hard worked honey to bears this year and I was not going to have that happen!

We had many frames like this one, that was filled with honey, capped and ready to pull. There are some frames that need more time. So far so good, no sign of the bear. Last we saw of it was it running off into the woods with a crazy terrier mix fast on it's behind heading North!!!