Deer Bees

Temperature plummeted at midday yesterday and it started snowing but didn't settle. Overnight at around 2°C it managed to produce enough to be able to greet us with the above scene. As I was making my first cup of coffee noticed a movement behind the bee hives and spotted a deer. The camera happened to be in the kitchen so grabbed it and did my best through the fly screen to capture the event but the deer quickly moved on, I suspect it spotted the red rangefinder light. Quickly put the photos on PC and was very disappointed to see the poor result.

It is possible with a bit of imagination to see the deer with it's head "against" the tree in the middle of the shot, it's body to the left. Angie came in a minute later and looked a bit sceptical when I told her but then we spotted it again but could only see bits moving rather than the whole body.

No doubt they will be back - the hives are situated on a patch the deers seem to regularly visit in spring, about 5 meters from our fence and 10 meters from the house.

A sight MrB my bee mentor would love. He is an "official" hunter although his patch is on the other side of the village. He has a quota of deer he is obliged to shoot each year but he gets just as much joy seeing a living one. Just yesterday one of the farmers on his patch phoned me and mentioned in passing he wanted to show MrB some damage the deer had done to his and neighbouring maize plants for which MrB is obliged to compensate although he isn't asking for any. It is generally believed deer don't damage maize, just the wild boar and he simply wanted to show that they had.