Ashleymarie529
Chirping
Thanks for being so open through this hard time so that the rest of us can learn from your sad experience. Really appreciate it.Not for the squeamish: These photos illustrate bee-stung duck carcasses. When I first discovered the massacre, I did not recognize that the bumps were bee stings. I assumed it was dirt or something left by other bugs. Bright light and a pair of tweezers helped confirm the cause of death. In the first photo, the bumps along the drake's bill and around his eyes and nostrils are the stingers. As you can see there are more than 30 of these bumps. When tweezed out, these bumps separated into two or more stingers. I think the color is due to fluid from the sting wound, but I'm not sure about that. The other side of his head looked about the same.Bee stingers accumulated on a paper towel. The material in the lighted area was taken from a single WH duck.
The underside of the drake's bill is soft enough for bee to attack successfully. Over 30 stings here:
The drake's foot took at least eight stings before he hunkered down in defense:
My WH duck had some bare spots on her head from rough mating, and I made the bare spot worse by pulling feathers to look for stingers. She had over 50 stings in this area. The bees were able to get through some of the head feathers and reach the skin.
I hope these photos are informative enough to compensate for the sad/gross content.
