Michigan Black Bears Pillage State's Beehives: 5 Fast Facts

There have been no reports of Michigan’s black bears getting their heads hopelessly stuck in a honey jar, but they’re acting a lot like Pooh, minus the adorable part, according to some of the state’s beekeepers. The bears have been looting hives, stripping away the honeycomb and either killing or chasing away the honey bees that produced it.

Beekeeper Larry Hilbert told the Detroit Free Press that bears are repeat visitors to his family’s honey farm near Traverse City, where his sons are fifth-generation beekeepers. They don’t just grab the honeycomb, he said, but also destroy the wooden boxes containing the hives and more or less lick them clean, wiping out honey production for a year.

Hilbert said he has more bear problems “in a month than my dad had in a 40-year career.” (For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Detroit Patch, and click here to find your local Michigan Patch. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

Like us on Facebook, then continue reading below.

Here are five things to know about Michigan’s increasing bear population and some of the effects:

1. Michigan’s black bear population is managed by the state’s Department of Natural Resources to ensure a robust population for hunting, and the current population is estimated at 9,700 on the Upper Peninsula and more than 15,000 statewide.

2. Beekeepers have complained for years the bear population is out of control and endangering their livelihoods, and this year the DNR said it would allow 52 more bears than last to be harvested on the Upper Peninsula and 112 more bears on the Lower Peninsula.

See Also: Interloping Black Bear Tickles Twitter

3. Good news for hunters is bad news for bears, obviously, but also for bees. Collapsing honey bee populations worldwide are causing alarm because of bees’ important role as pollinators. The loss is particularly sharp in the United States, where beekeepers lost 28.1 per cent of colonies over the 2015-16 winter. In Michigan, the bees pollinate the state’s prized cherry and other orchards, and the loss of bees

4 Good news for hunters also means bad news for motorists. The Michigan State Police’s Office of Highway Safety Planning began tracking car-bear accidents last year, and the 61 reported statewide included one in Wayne County.

5. If you think there are a lot of bears now, keep in mind it’s breeding season for bears. Cubs will be born in January in dens with their mother. Litters typically consist of two or three cubs, but may include four, according to the DNR. And when they emerge from the den in the spring, they’ll be hungry.

Photo via Michigan Department of Natural Resources