Wayward bear accused of another honey heist in western Minnesota

A wandering black bear has been accused of another beehive raid in western Minnesota.

Beekeeper Eddie Molloy said a bear tore into five of his beehives, leaving a bite mark in one frame, in search of delicious larvae with a side of honey.

“Just a lot of carnage of the bees,” Molloy, 51, said Tuesday.

Molloy said he believes the culprit is the same black bear photographed on June 16 in Graceville, a town of 586 people three hours west of the Twin Cities on the South Dakota border.

The black bear is believed to be a male yearling wandering unusually far south and west in search of a territory of his own.

The yearling has previously been accused of breaking into beehives at the Lismore Hutterite Colony on June 19.

Molloy said he discovered the devastation at the beehives southwest of Clinton in late June, a few days after the beehive raid on the Lismore Hutterite Colony.

“When we pulled into the bee yard, we noticed that a lot of the hives were knocked down into the ground,” said Molloy, who said he works as a beekeeper for Felker and Felker and lives in Odessa during the summer season.

Molloy said one beehive had a frame with a 4½-inch bite mark in it. Other frames were “crunched up, broken and destroyed.” Four frames are completely missing, he said.

He believes a young, hungry bear had visited his beehives.

“They go for the larva; that’s the protein,” Molloy said. “Honey, that’s the bonus.”

The bear left no fur and no droppings, Molloy said, but there were scrapings in the nearby grass about a yard wide. He said that was where the bear was rubbing his face into the ground to shake off attacking bees.

Molloy estimates about $2,000 in damage wrought by the bear.

“Those were some of our better hives that he hit,” Molloy said.

With all the larvae gone and their home destroyed, the surviving bees will probably scatter and try to join other colonies, or die, he said, adding that he put up a trail cam in case the bear comes back.

Bears have been moving farther south and west of their usual habitat in the northern third of Minnesota, said Andrew Tri, a biologist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

Humans are more accepting of bears now, and some of the animals have developed a taste for corn crops and sunflowers in farm country. The DNR estimates there are about 13,000 to 18,000 black bears in the state.

Tri said the public should never feed or approach bears and should secure food, garbage and bird feeders that might tempt them.

Black bears aren’t inherently dangerous, but as wild animals they should be given a wide berth, said Tri, DNR bear project leader.

The department wants to hear about bear sightings in southwest Minnesota and has a website for reporting bears outside their traditional range.