# opossum attack



## missybee (Sep 6, 2014)

We have a opossum that comes every night for months now, eating up dead bees on the ground. 

This time it crawled up on the landing board, knocked off the brick I have as a wind/entrance/hold the mouse guard in place. 

It ignored the hive for a bit then crawled up, the bees came swarming out, stinging the opossum. It was eating some.

I watched the tape for the rest of the night and last night, did not see it do that again. Is this common behavior making the bees come out of the hive, or did it just take advantage of the situation.

If common how do you protect your hives from opossum's? We have skunks, but have never had a skunk attack. 

The dark is the bees swarming out of the hive, we watched the opossum shake its head as it was stung. This was around 2:54 am


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

squarepeg has written about trapping and relocating opossums from his beeyard. I'm sure he'd be willing to tell you what he's experienced.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

yes, opossums end up being the culprit for chewed up bees much more often than skunks in my experience.


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## Eikel (Mar 12, 2014)

Check with your local conservation department before trapping and releasing, it's verboten for some animals in some areas.


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

This may be that thread with _squarepeg_'s post, and includes a link to the trap he uses:
http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...-these&p=911259&highlight=opossums#post911259


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Eikel said:


> Check with your local conservation department before trapping and releasing, it's verboten for some animals in some areas.


pests can be dispatched if they are causing damage to property. they can be relocated as long as the county line is not crossed.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

You can always kill them but opossums generally make pretty good neighbors. It seems a shame to kill them. I think most of the 'do not relocate' are a result of concerns about the potential spread of rabies. Around here, if you are a licensed trapper, you aren't supposed to relocate skunks or raccoons for that reason.


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## missybee (Sep 6, 2014)

It was live and let live no longer. I have the hav a heart trap. We will relocate the critter. We have a lot of rural and woods around us.


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## Eikel (Mar 12, 2014)

> pests can be dispatched if they are causing damage to property. they can be relocated as long as the county line is not crossed.


Not all are rural and the laws are different for different regions. Here's a response from a Q&A for nuisance animal website:

If you want to remove the animal yourself, call your local Illinois Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist or Conservation Police Officer to request an animal removal permit. A removal permit will be issued only after all other reasonable control methods have failed to remedy the problem. (In rural areas, legal hunting or trapping methods could be used to remove certain game or furbearing species)


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

I have been told that you need to move it several miles away.....they have a pretty good homing instinct.


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## John Davis (Apr 29, 2014)

You might try putting some carpet tack strip on the landing board as a deterrent for critters. Possums look ugly but are actually very clean and eat lots of ticks as a regular part of their diet


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Shoot it in the head with a 22 rifle. Possums may be clean on the outside, as they do groom like cats, but they aren't clean on the inside. The feed on carrion very frequently. I have seen them feasting on a rotting cow carcass. Even when they were common table fare down here people didn't just kill them, clean them and eat them. They put them in a cage and fed them for a month to "clean them out."


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## Kenww (Apr 14, 2013)

They haven't bothered my bees as far as I know. They do kill chickens. I was surprised they'd go after something so big, but I've caught them in the act. I used to try to relocate. I'm planning harsher methods next time.

If you do live trap, they love sardines, but you might catch a cat. Apples work but not as well. They eat anything and everything.


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## Gypsi (Mar 27, 2011)

I relocate if I can. If I can't well, it dies. Possums haven't bothered my bees but are great fans of eggs and young chicks, and while my backyard pen is possum secure, approximately, I had to catch the possum in the lot birds coop and toss him in a cage before driving him to a wildlife area. The bee yard is also on the lot. He just liked eggs


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## billabell (Apr 19, 2010)

Eikel said:


> Check with your local conservation department before trapping and releasing, it's verboten for some animals in some areas.


Everything is verboten in Maryland. The land of the rain tax.
52 years of experience.


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

Eikel said:


> Check with your local conservation department before trapping and releasing, it's verboten for some animals in some areas.


Looked up the Illinois rules and yes, if it is a fur bearing animal like a raccoon or possum, you are required get a permit to trap nuisance animals. Did not get a definitive answer on relocating them. Call the DNR if you're in Illinois.

OP is from the Commonwealth Maryland which is even more strict than Illinois when it comes to game laws. 
Have a nuisance trapper hunting buddy from Maryland. As soon as he responds to my email I'll report what he says about trapping and relocating a possum in his state.


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## North Hadley (May 10, 2015)

Do not relocate you are just giving your problem to someone else. Would you like it if someone brought annoying critter to your property? There are ways to dispose of it properly


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## DavidZ (Apr 9, 2016)

Get yourself some cats, our barn cats keep the possums out and off the property.
If I see one in a tree here the cats or wolfy's didn't scare off, 
I just get the rifle scope and suppressor on and erase them from existence. 
Then I feed them to my wolf hybrids. easy enough to control.


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## Gypsi (Mar 27, 2011)

I relocate to a wildlife conservation area. and I have 2 feral cats. If the possum is eating their cat food, they wait politely until it has finished and gone away. (should have video-ed that).


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## GSkip (Dec 28, 2014)

Buy a live trap and bait with the cheapest Doller Store cat food you can find. Had opposums destroy my satsuma's crop last season, this year they got trapped. Cage'em feed them fruit and vegetables from a month. After they are butchered soak them in a salt brine with pickling spices and brown sugar over night then cook'em in a cast iron pot with onions, potatoes, carrots, and some garlic in your smoker.


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## NeilV (Nov 18, 2006)

I expected that recipe to end with "then throw away the possum and eat the board," but it didn't. There wasn't even a mention of the board.


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## missybee (Sep 6, 2014)

We have a electric fence setup, might just wrap some wire down low around the hives and turn it on. A few good zaps and it won't be back. 
I have been watching it eat dead bees for months now, almost every night, this was the first hive attack.


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## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

When I am not to lazy, I trap them, shoot them and throw them in the woods and let nature take its course.
gww


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## Gypsi (Mar 27, 2011)

That was some recipe. If the economy gets bad I'll be looking it up again.


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

My trapper friend from Maryland says that it is not legal to relocate trapped fur bearers in Maryland unless you relocate to your own property which is sort of pointless. 

Kill and eat it. Tastes like chicken. Goes good with golf eggs. lol


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## GSkip (Dec 28, 2014)

Gypsi said:


> That was some recipe. If the economy gets bad I'll be looking it up again.


 You got'em in Fort Worth too (used to live there, still have family on the west side). You call'em armadillos, that's just a opossum on the half shell down here!!!!


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## jonsl (Jul 16, 2016)

Calling Andrew Zimmern...


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## GSkip (Dec 28, 2014)

NeilV said:


> I expected that recipe to end with "then throw away the possum and eat the board," but it didn't. There wasn't even a mention of the board.


Possum is survival food, when the masses are starving some of us will be eating good!!!!


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## frogpondwarrior (Aug 2, 2016)

No possums here but lots of skunks and racoons. Have had a few messing with our hives. If you live trap them here they have to be released back where you trapped them.....agree kinda pointless...or they have to be euthanized. They consider it cruel to move them away from the only food sources they know. Lots of DNR guys trap on the side for spree cash and if caught releasing elsewhere will lose their trapping licence. When on the job it's the same....euthanize or leave them.


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## jonsl (Jul 16, 2016)

GSkip said:


> Possum is survival food, when the masses are starving some of us will be eating good!!!!


There are over 100 million guns in this country. When the masses are starving there wont be any possums left for long.


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## GSkip (Dec 28, 2014)

jonsl said:


> There are over 100 million guns in this country. When the masses are starving there wont be any possums left for long.


That's a good point. Don't say that too loud some Washington liberal try to pass new gun legislation based on "Save the Opossum"!!!!


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## AR1 (Feb 5, 2017)

You know, if all he was doing was eating dead bees off the ground, he was probably doing you a service and helping prevent disease. Too bad he went for the gold!


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## missybee (Sep 6, 2014)

AR1 said:


> You know, if all he was doing was eating dead bees off the ground, he was probably doing you a service and helping prevent disease. Too bad he went for the gold!


It has kept the bee yard clean of any little dead bees. I think I will try the electric fence method first. I have trouble killing anything. A few wires across the front entrances to the hives. We have the wire the controller and even have it set up, just not in use right now. 

We are not home,, goofing off in Cancun, but will make it a priority job we get back. So are it has not attacked them again.


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## mcon672 (Mar 5, 2015)

Opossums are one of the worst predators on wild turkey nests. I LOVE to turkey hunt so no opossums are "relocated" here. Plus as others have said when you relocate them you are just dumping your problem on someone else's doorstep. Shoot it, tell no one and forget about it. You are only breaking a game law if someone else knows about it, otherwise it never happened. If you don't want to kill it and waste it feed it to your chickens. My girls will pick a carcass clean in no time. Cancun huh? Good for you! High of 38 today here .


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## Yunzow (Mar 16, 2017)

I killed a possum the other day because it was getting in my chicken nest boxes and eating eggs. I heard that they could eat chickens, too. But I regret killing it later, should have just trapped it. 
I have read they are not likely to have rabies, something about their immune system.
In Georgia, there are plenty of folks that would want to eat one, another reason just to trap them.


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## Yunzow (Mar 16, 2017)

I have read in books that the possum behavior you are describing is pretty typical, and skunks will do the same thing. Basically, knock on the hive and eat the bees that come out. 

From the image of your video, looks like what you need to do is prevent the possum from getting up on that board. If it has to stand up to eat the bees, it won't bother because its belly will be exposed to stings. Make the board smaller? or inaccessible; someone else in this thread mentions a carpet tack strip on the landing board.


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## carrie palmer (Apr 17, 2017)

Bee yards often lure animal visitors, both domestic and wild of which some are pests, some are an annoyance for the beekeeper. Interestingly, some are beneficial for the beehive. 
Possum can be controlled by making the entrance less accessible or to increase the possibility of stings to the animal. Elevate the entrance on a hive stand or large mesh wire (chicken wire) can be very effective in dealing with these marauders. This would force them to crouch down when the bees come out whereby the chances of getting stung are more.
Some prefer using traps or poison baits
Bears can be distanced with electric fence, while skunks are a nuisance which loves to gorge on bees. Possum and raccoons at times become a nuisance for the beekeepers. The wildlife removal services toronto suggest settings a live trap, when they start attacking hives. The guard bees safeguard the beehives from most intruders. Screening /elevation of the entrance is the adequate control.


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