Bee nest attack

[Verinda]

I spotted this a couple of days ago, something had tried to dig up this little burrowing bee nest. Could it be a badger I wonder? And would there be much honey to find, I didn't think such bees made a particularly large quantity of honey to make it worth digging up.

The bees were working like mad to restore the nest, they were appearing out of holes in the ground so I think the badger or fox or whatever didn't really get to the nest anyway.

[mothhawk]

It could have been the bee larvae it was after, nice juicy grubs, just what badgers love! Bumbles don't make honey.

[Knight of Albion]

Yes, that certainly looks like the work of a badger.

[Bill HH]

It could have been the bee larvae it was after, nice juicy grubs, just what badgers love! Bumbles don't make honey.

Good for fishing too.

[BertieFox]

All bees, including bumbles, DO make honey. It's just that they don't store it in any quantity but instead put it into small cells next to the larvae. There is certainly no 'surplus' as they don't need it to survive the winter when the nest dies out and the newly mated queens go into hibernation for the winter, as solitary bees. Anything that likes the sweet taste could have dug out the nest, but that could include mice and voles as well as larger mammals, though as somebody else says, they are probably far more interested in the nice fat larvae.

[Verinda]

The ground just there is really hard and the grass roots just a solid mat so it had to be something with big strong claws.

Thank you for all your interesting replies everyone.

My son has a camera that takes automatic photos when it detects movement. It's never been used so I think it's time to set it up and see if I can identify the digger!

[Verinda]

As a foot note to this story, shortly after the attack we found a dead badger in the road at the end of our lane. Cars were swerving round it so we carried it into a field, poor thing. There hasn't been any digging since so I'm wondering if that was our bee nest badger

I have set up the camera too but all we got so far is a crow and a pheasant!