Mary Heers, Author at Wild About Utah

May 18, 2020March 12, 2022

Black Bear Country

As I hopped out of my car to take a short hike up Cache Valley’s Dry Canyon Trail I was surprised to see the Utah Department of Wildlife Resources had posted a picture of a black bear. “Bear Country,” it said. “Store food safely and keep campsites clean.” I’ve never seen a black bear in Utah but a quick check of the DNR website confirmed that as of last count, July of last year, there were 4,000 black bears in Utah. In winter the bears stay out of site. But by May they are coming out of hibernation looking for food and very hungry.

Black Bear Country: Black Bear Sitting Photo Courtesy US FWS Mike Bender, Photographer — Black Bear Sitting
Photo Courtesy US FWS
Mike Bender, Photographer

Now I’ve always envied the bears ability to go to sleep fat in the fall and wake up thin in the spring. For me this would be the ultimate diet plan. But on further investigation I found that hibernating bears are not simply sleeping. They do slow down. The heart drops from 50 beats a minute to less than ten. Its breathing slows to once every 45 seconds. The body temperature drops almost ten degrees. The bears do not get up at night to pee. Amazingly, the bear does not eat, drink, urinate or defecate for months.

People who study bears tell us that keeping this hibernating metabolism going takes 4,000 calories a day. So having burned through their fat reserve the bear comes out of hibernation in the spring very Interested in food. The problem occurs when bears discover human food because once having tasted it they want more.

Young Male Blackbear Climbing Tree Courtesy US FWS Steve Maslowski, Photographer — Young Male Blackbear Climbing Tree
Courtesy US FWS
Steve Maslowski, Photographer

My daughter once told me about a camping trip she had taken in the Wind Rivers where a bear came into their campsite at midnight. She and her friends jumped out of their tents and saw the bear climb the tree where they had hung their food. For four hours the bear worked at getting that food. Finally, the tree branch broke and the food bag crashed to the ground. The bear ate their bagels, every single chocolate covered espresso bean, everything except the jalapeno crème cheese.

I took one last look at the poster at the trailhead. The small print said, “Learn to live with bears.” I thought some people learned more slowly than others. I remembered a trip I had taken to Yellowstone National Park and reassured my out of town guest that the National Park Service had solved the problem with bears. To my chagrin when we were checking in the camp host told us that they were having trouble with the bears. “It’s toothpaste,” the lady said, “They like the sweet taste of toothpaste.” I wasn’t worried until the next morning when my guest confessed she had remembered her toothpaste was still in her jacket inside the tent. “Ah, let the bear make its choice,” she sighed as she drifted off to sleep. No bear came into the campsite that night.

Sometimes you just get lucky.

This is Mary Heers and I am Wild About Utah.

Credits:
Photos: Bear Country Sign: Courtesy Mary Heers, Photographer
Sitting Bear: Courtesy US FWS, Mike Bender, Photographer
Climbing Bear: Courtesy US FWS, Steve Maslowski, Photographer
Audio: Friend Weller and technical engineers J. Chase and K.W. Baldwin
Text: Mary Heers

Additional Reading

Larese-Casanova, Mark, Blackbears, Wild About Utah, 23 June 2011, https://wildaboututah.org/blackbears/

Leavitt, Shauna, Orphaned Bear Cub Rehabilitation, Wild About Utah, 14 August 2017, https://wildaboututah.org/orphaned-bear-cub-rehabilitation/

Greene, Jack, Bears, Wild About Utah, 22 October 2018, https://wildaboututah.org/bears/

Burt, W. H. and R. P. Grossenheider. 1980. A field guide to the mammals. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. 289 pp. https://www.amazon.com/Mammals-Peterson-Guides-William-1990-04-30/dp/B01K0R5D3G

Safety in Bear Country http://wildlife.utah.gov/dwr/learn-more/bear-safety.html

Utah Division of Wildlife Resources Utah Conservation Data Center http://dwrcdc.nr.utah.gov/rsgis2/Search/Display.asp?FlNm=ursuamer

Venefica, Avia Native American Bear Meaning, Whats Your Sign, https://www.whats-your-sign.com/native-american-bear-meaning.html

Welker, Glenn, Native American Bear Stories, Indigenous People, last updated 06/11/2016, http://www.indigenouspeople.net/bear.htm

Gates, Chuck, The bear truth: Utah’s black bears pose little danger to humans, Deseret News, Oct 15, 2009, https://www.deseretnews.com/article/705336743/The-bear-truth-Utahs-black-bears-pose-little-danger-to-humans.html

Black Bear – Ursus americanus, Utah Species, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, http://fieldguide.wildlife.utah.gov/?Species=Ursus%20americanus

Black Bear, Ursus americanus, Utah Conservation Data Center, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, https://dwrcdc.nr.utah.gov/rsgis2/search/Display.asp?FlNm=ursuamer

August 12, 2019December 6, 2020

Discovering Honeybees

Wanting to know more, I dropped into the Honeyland store in Cache Valley and was soon mesmerized by the active cut-away hive on display. It was a teacher’s dream come true – hundreds of bees – all diligently on task. Wide-eyed, I watched as a bee flew in at the bottom of the screen through a tunnel under the window looking very much like a bike rider with two full paniers She deposited the full sacks of pollen and then she began to dance. This took me quickly to the internet to learn more.. The bees dance is called a “waggle dance” – a straight line calibrated to communicate how far away the food source is, and a circular return arc to orient the path to the food. The waggle dancing bee can direct her sisters to a food source up to five miles away.

It takes 550 worker bees visiting 2 million flowers to make 1 pound of honey.

Top speed for a bee is 15 mph.

Each honey bee makes one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.

Busy, busy bees working together to set aside enough honey to feed themselves during the winter.

The poet Dick Paetzke once called honey “the soul of a field of flowers”

Mountain honey looks and tastes a little different than honey made by bees pollinating Cache Valley alfalfa. Both are incredibly delicious.

Aristotle got it right: “Honey is the nectar of the gods.”

This is Mary Heers and I am Wild About Utah.

Additional Reading

https://thehoneybeeconservancy.org/

Burlew, Rusty, Honeybee Suite, https://honeybeesuite.com/

Honeybee, National Geographic Kids, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/h/honeybee/

About The Honeybee, American Beekeeping Federation, https://www.abfnet.org/page/PollinatorFacts

Utah Beekeepers Association, http://www.utahbeekeepers.com/

Moab Bee Inspired Gardens, Utah State University, https://beeinspired.usu.edu/about/

Bee Fest 2020, Sponsored by Catalyst Magazine and Utah Museum of Natural History,
Recorded Facebook Livestream: https://www.facebook.com/events/2719162278365095/?post_id=2757236484557674&view=permalink
SLC Bee Fest Homepage: https://slcbeefest.com/?fbclid=IwAR3xJ4E-WMNm5hizCKiajsmu0brmG1kMKEwgS0IcWij0RwpjLYTdOu4bODs

September 10, 2018December 22, 2020

Honeybees

I was a bit surprised when I met a local beekeeper who insisted she’d never eat any honey except that produced by bees in the mountains above Cache Valley. It made sense that the taste of honey would be determined by the flowers where the bees collected nectar and pollen. It turns out the Forest Service issues permits to local beekeepers to put hives around Tony Grove

Wanting to know more, I dropped into the Honeyland store in Cache Valley and was soon mesmerized by the active cut-away hive on display. It was a teacher’s dream come true – hundreds of bees – all diligently on task. Wide-eyed, I watched as a bee flew in at the bottom of the screen through a tunnel under the window looking very much like a bike rider with two full paniers She deposited the full sacks of pollen and then she began to dance. This took me quickly to the internet to learn more.. The bees dance is called a “waggle dance” – a straight line calibrated to communicate how far away the food source is, and a circular return arc to orient the path to the food. The waggle dancing bee can direct her sisters to a food source up to five miles away.

It takes 550 worker bees visiting 2 million flowers to make 1 pound of honey.

Top speed for a bee is 15 mph.

Each honey bee makes one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.

I soon returned to the store’s cut away hive and finally found the queen – a bit tricky as she looks like all the others except she’s one and a half times bigger. I watched as she dipped her tail into one hexagonal cell after another. On a good day a queen will lay 2,000 eggs.

Busy, busy bees working together to set aside enough honey to feed themselves during the winter.

The poet Dick Paetzke once called honey “the soul of a field of flowers”

Mountain honey looks and tastes a little different than honey made by bees pollinating Cache Valley alfalfa. Both are incredibly delicious.
Aristotle got it right: “Honey is the nectar of the gods.”

This is Mary Heers and I am Wild About Utah.

Credits:
Photos: Courtesy & Copyright © Mary Heers
Text: Mary Heers

Sources & Additional Reading

https://thehoneybeeconservancy.org/

Burlew, Rusty, Honeybee Suite, https://honeybeesuite.com/

Honeybee, National Geographic Kids, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/h/honeybee/

About The Honeybee, American Beekeeping Federation, https://www.abfnet.org/page/PollinatorFacts

Utah Beekeepers Association, http://www.utahbeekeepers.com/

Moab Bee Inspired Gardens, Utah State University, https://beeinspired.usu.edu/about/

Bee Fest 2020, Sponsored by Catalyst Magazine and Utah Museum of Natural History, Recorded Facebook Livestream: https://www.facebook.com/events/2719162278365095/?post_id=2757236484557674&view=permalink SLC Bee Fest Homepage: https://slcbeefest.com/?fbclid=IwAR3xJ4E-WMNm5hizCKiajsmu0brmG1kMKEwgS0IcWij0RwpjLYTdOu4bODs