Years ago, when i was a kid, my dad had bees. He and his friends each have several hives and harvested honey to sell to people in the town. In the early to mid 80s, honey was a fad. Everyone used it for canning, cooking, etc. It was THE thing among the health food crowd. So.... a hobby turned in to extra money for my parents to raise 7 kids. We all helped, carrying boxes, fighting skunks (more on this later), de-capping frames, spinning honey, swatting bees during harvest in the back yard. Being the oldest, my dad counted on me helping with the heavy work. He also counted on me to do a lot of the dirty work and this is where we talk skunks. Bees and skunks???? OK so let me explain. Skunks eat bees. They walk up to the hive at night and scratch on the landing. The bees come out to investigate and the skunk licks them up. A single skunk can eat an entire hive in a couple of nights. Dad had a friend that had property out by the city dump and he let dad put his hives there. Lots of clover and wild flowers around but because it was near the dump, lots of skunks too. Dad placed foot traps at each of the hives. Each morning we would go check the traps. Almost every morning there were several skunks caught in the traps. Not dead, they were ALIVE.
Have you ever tried to free a live skunk from a trap?? I didn't think so. You have to kill them or you will never get them out of the trap. I got to be a really great shot with the 22 cal. and could often kill the skunk without it spraying, but not always. We spent an entire summer clearing traps and burying skunks. I estimated we trapped about 150 in just three months and it smelled like it! After a while the hobby got in the way of teenagers needs and was abandoned. Dad kept all the hardware and boxes in the back of the shed, just in case.
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