‘Grandma with a Camera’ captures drone footage of young bear suspected in honey theft

The moment Carol Bauer heard there was a bear running around the farm fields near her home in western Minnesota, the woman known in the area as the “Grandma with a camera” grabbed her gear and got ready to go.

The lost young black bear she photographed is now suspected in a beehive break-in, and was far south and west of the usual range for bears and their typical habitat and food sources.

The yearling, which scampered into the woods, is the talk of Graceville, Minn., said Bauer, 60, whose photos from the sighting on June 16 have been shared more than 400 times.

The alleged honey thief is the first ursine visitor anyone can remember in Graceville, a town of 586 people three hours west of the Twin Cities on the South Dakota border.

“We just don’t get that kind of excitement around here,” Bauer said.

The community has been buzzing after some commercial beehives were tossed around, Bauer said, leading to speculation the visiting bear had gotten hungry for honey.

Jonas Wollman, beekeeper for the Lismore Hutterite Colony, said he discovered something broke into his beehives on June 19, and he’s fairly sure a bear is the culprit.

Parts of a beehive were broken into pieces, and Wollman said he’s missing frames filled with larva and a small amount of honey. He said he’s now borrowed a range camera to watch his hives.

The bear is likely a young male looking for a new home, said Andrew Tri, a biologist with the Department of Natural Resources.

June is typically when the DNR receives reports of bears in unexpected places, said Tri, bear project leader.

This is because mothers usually kick their yearlings out of the house at this time of year. These young males wander off, looking for new territory to call their own.

The DNR estimates there are about 13,000 to 18,000 black bears in the state, mostly in the northern third of the state.

These bears have been moving farther south and west, Tri said. Humans are more accepting of bears now, and some of the animals have developed a taste for corn crops and sunflowers in farm country.

A DNR mapping website shows a couple of bear sightings as far south as Rochester this year, as well as a handful of sightings in Benton and Sherburne counties.

But the sighting near Graceville is notable, Tri said, as the former prairies never had much habitat for black bears.

“This is pretty far out there,” Tri said.

The DNR is aware of another bear sighting across the border in Milbank, S.D.

It’s possible there are two brother bears, both ousted by the same mom, traveling together, Tri said.

The DNR says black bears aren’t inherently dangerous, but as wild animals they should be given a wide berth.

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