The bees. They lost their heads.... or their bodies.

It snowed in northern Utah this weekend. The forecast suggested a good three to four inches of white fluffy snow. Naturally I suspected we would get around an inch. Needless to say, I was shocked when I woke up on Saturday morning to a good 12 inches of snow, the bottom two inches being slush. I spent a good hour and a half shoveling the driveway and the part of the back yard that is a moderately impervious surface (read that as concrete with cracks) so the dogs don't think they need to use it as their own, nearby, potty spot. I subsequently braved the continuing blizzard and questionable roads to take the two dogs our for our standard Saturday morning outing. They enjoyed the romp through snow that appeared to make them look like fuzzy snowplows. The backstory is unimportant with the exception that, following all of the shoveling (which I also did several more times during the day) I didn't feel like doing much else outside and had work to do. I mean, real proposal writing-type work, not to mention a deconstructed bathroom that requires additional attention to get back in to proper functioning condition. All of that to say, I didn't take the compost bin out to the back yard and attempt to dump it into the, now filled with snow because I left the lid off, compost bin. Tonight, Sunday, it had to happen. The compost bin was overflowing and, as one of my standard house chores, it had been neglected. After emptying the bin, and cursing myself for leaving the lid off, I plowed through the snow, right past one of our beehives. This particular hive has done quite well for being an Eco Bee Box "mini-hive". I'm not sure if I expect them to make it through the winter or not, but to this point, they have done well.

A shot from early January 2016. A warm day, roughly 38*F.

As is the case with all hives in the winter, the live bees will carry their dead counterparts outside and dump them on the stoop or in the snow, which makes the area appear like a bee graveyard, which, I suppose it is. This particular hive has a small ramp and board under it, for no other reason then to help the bees get into the hive and catch the dead bees for my inspection and subsequent cleaning up. On this evening, as I tromped by in somewhere between twelve to fourteen inches of snow, I noted that the pile of dead bees that had previously been there in subsequent days, was now significantly diminished. My initial assessment was the wind blew them off; however, upon closer examination, I discovered that, while the bee bodies were gone, their heads all remained in small scattered piles on the board.

The bees, they lost their bodies.

While I have no idea if it is bird, mammal, insect, or other (I doubt insect due to temperatures), I thought it post worth for the sheer fact that I enjoy the fact that something is foraging on these dead creatures, for better or worse.

****************** UPDATED*********************

After a number of weeks keeping an eye out, and finally placing a good, old-fashioned mouse trap, the culprit, and six of his kin, have been dispatched. I normally would go for a live trip or similar, but the mice are hard on bees and I know the mice aren't suffering from colony collapse. I'll keep the traps set for a few more weeks just to help keep the pressure off the hives. Of course, the large hives all have mouse guards, I'll look in to something similar for the mini-hives for next winter.