A couple posts back I relayed the story of a bear and her two cubs on the hill out behind the Chisos Basin Visitor Center. Through the binoculars I could see one of the cubs holding something down with his front paws, biting at it and then pulling up on it with his teeth. Occasionally he would raise his head and shake until his ears flapped so hard we could hear it down at the bottom of the hill.
The next day the bears were still on the hill and I told the story of climbers causing the momma bear some irritation. Rangers were called in and people and bears went their separate ways. But this encounter caused a stir in the natural resources group of the park.
The day following the encounter a ranger from the natural resources group came to the basin and climbed Appetite Hill to do a survey of the situation. The outcome was that the hill was declared to be free of bears. However, it was discovered why the bears were hanging around one spot for so long and just exactly what that cub was doing. It seems that the small cave I described previously was a giant honey pot. Bees had built a massive hive in the cave and the bears had located it. The cub had been holding down a honey comb and engorging on it. Even though he had hauled it out of the cave and moved onto a boulder just down the hill, the bees had not given up trying to defend the hive. From the shaking the cub was doing of his head there must have been quite a few of those bees getting through that thick hide.
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