By: Ed Colby
Walking down the path to the river the other evening, I almost tripped over a big bull snake. Mottled brown and tan, at first glance it looked like a rattler, but we have precious few of those around here. It was headed for the Interstate, about 20 feet away. What if I just grabbed it? I could turn it loose on the farm. Finally, a check on henhouse mice running amok! It looked sneaky, like the bull snake in the Garden of Eden. It didn’t look friendly. But it looked like a snake that could take care of a mouse problem for sure.
When I put my foot on it, it tried to bite me, but I was crafty and quick. When I stepped on it with my other foot, closer to its head, it tried to bite me again. But I pinned it and grabbed it behind the head, like the snake guys on TV. I’m six foot, and when I dangled it in front of me, its tail nearly touched the ground. So it was what, four feet? Five? I’m saying five because I’m an angler, and you know how we are.
I had my snake. Now, what to do with it… It was a short walk to the car. While holding my prize in one hand I was able with the other to search through my junk-filled Subaru for some shopping bags with a zipper closure, some gunnysack waiting to get cut up for smoker fuel, something, anything, in which to put the snake.
Finding nothing, I tossed the snake in the back of the car and closed the door. It slid under the front passenger seat, and I went fishing.
When I got back it was way too dark. I flipped on all the interior lights but no sign of my new friend. I wondered if it might slide across my neck on the drive home, but it was a well-behaved snake and stayed in its lair. When I got back to the farm, I decided to release it in the morning.
About this time I had an unnerving thought: Don’t bull snakes eat chicken eggs? Maybe I didn’t want an egg-eating python patrolling the henhouse! On the Internet I learned that they also climb trees and raid the nests of wild birds, eating eggs and baby birds alike. My gal Marilyn’s a bird admirer and advocate. Imperiled Lewis’s woodpeckers nest in holes in dead limbs on the enormous poplar in the front yard. She was out of town and incommunicado, but I was pretty sure she wasn’t going to go for releasing an aggressive bird predator on the property.
Next morning, I caught a glimpse of my snake poking its head out from under the passenger seat, but it quickly retreated when it saw me. I thought about killing it but how to commit such an act? And it somehow didn’t feel right.
Next, I called a reptile pet store and amused the proprietor with my sad tale. He informed me that bull snakes are “very active” at night. The weather was stinking hot. I kept the Subaru in the shade all day, so as not to roast my reptile. When I checked in the cool of early evening, it was wrapped around the driver’s headrest. Again, as soon as it saw me, it retreated under the seat.
Just before dark, I put my bicycle in the back and drove to a place down the road on Bureau of Land Management land that I thought the snake might like. I rolled down the windows and rode my bike home. When I went back the next morning the snake was gone.
But enough of snakes! You’re reading this in September, but we just had the Fourth of July. Today, I tested a hive with a new Russian queen and counted 22 mites in a 300-bee sample. It’s a little early in the Summer for such a big number. This could be a curtain call. But I don’t blame the queen. She probably got dealt a bad hand, that’s all.
I’ve had it with Varroa. This time I fixed their wagon. Because most of the mites are in the sealed brood, where they’re hard to kill, I scraped the brood into a bucket and put the gooey scraped frames right back in the hive. Then, I gave the bees an oxalic acid dribble treatment, my favorite for knocking down Varroa in a broodless colony.
You might say, “Oh, but you killed all those valuable soon-to-emerge honey bees!” Those would be mite-ridden honey bees, and I don’t want ‘em. With the brood gone, this populous colony with its very fecund queen may, in the fullness of time, recover nicely. Or not. You never know.
When Marilyn got back, I thought she’d be proud of me for saving her Lewis’s woodpeckers and her chicken eggs. But no. She insisted I should have released the snake right here on the farm! When I brought up the nest robbing and bird eating, she assured me our snake would surely not stoop to such activities, when mice are so plentiful.
Today, a small bull snake slipped down off the front porch. I looked at Marilyn and she looked at me. We watched it disappear into the high grass.
Gentle reader, did you find this poor epistle amusing, heartwarming, instructive? Contact Ed Colby at Coloradobees1@gmail.com. Ask him to promptly mail you an autographed copy of A Beekeeper’s Life, Tales from the Bottom Board – a collection of the best of his Bee Culture columns. Price: $25. Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back!
