Guess the Tracks In The Snow

Right after I finished two new nuc boxes for spring, we received what is only our second snowfall for the winter season, even though there's only about 3 weeks of winter left. This winter has not seen as much snowfall as normal for our region. I suppose it's all gone right around St. Louis and fallen on Boston and New England instead.

Today while walking around the yard, amongst the snow I found several different types of animal tracks through the yard.

I wandered over by the bees and saw these tracks below (outlined in yellow).


Here's a closer look at the prints in the snow in size comparison to the hive on the end of the row.



Here's a picture of the prints close up with a pine cone for size comparison.


Click here to see this picture larger.

Here's another set of prints with another pinecone.

Click here to see this picture larger.

Here's a third picture.

Click here to see this picture larger.

Finally, here's a fourth picture of prints.

Click here to see this picture larger.

If you think you know what type of prints these are, let me know in the comment section.

I think I might know what these are, but I'll hold my guess until a few others have a chance to comment.



Comments For This Post: (7) | Post Your Comments! Hide The Comment Form
mike says...
Date:   February 22, 2015, 2:09 pm

With five toes I'd guess it was Michael Landon (I was a teenage werewolf) looking for food.



Chris K says...
Date:   February 22, 2015, 2:36 pm

My guess is raccoon. 



Robin says...
Date:   February 23, 2015, 6:24 am

I'm guessing raccoon.   

If some of the prints had 'thumbs' pointing backward, then it would have been possum [mostly likely what you'd see here.]  I'll bet those hives smell pretty good to critters this time of year. 



Matthew says...
Date:   February 23, 2015, 11:17 am

Opossum 



Chris (Show Me The Honey) says...
Date:   February 23, 2015, 1:48 pm

I found additional tracks/patterns leading up to the hives that you couldn't see very well in the pictures of this post, and I didn't get any good pictures of, sorry about that!

 

In fact, I almost overlooked the tracks because they looked like a rabbit's back foot print with large toe-nails, and at the time I didn't know what they might be (other than a cross between bigfoot and a rabbit of course).

 

Looking at the picture below from ICWDM.org, it's clear to me now that what I saw was Racoon back feet. What is shown in the pictures of the post above, are mostly all front feet.

 

 

I suppose the smell of the hives in combination of the smorgasboard of fine delicacies like the ones below on the landing board, compliments of the mortician bees, brought about the coons!

 

 

Great guessing everyone!




Eric says...
Date:   February 27, 2015, 8:03 am

I'm in Eureka and just got my first hive. Should have a nuc colony delivered in May. Except for a couple books and a beekeeping class, I'm a total newbie. Will be watching your blog for tips.



Chris (Show Me The Honey) says...
Date:   February 27, 2015, 3:08 pm

Eric,

That's awesome! I'd love to compare experience and what's going on around town with our bees to see if we see the same things.

If you want, drop me a line sometime using the "contact us" link at the bottom, and we can swap email addresses if you ever need/want an "offline" chat.

Chris




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