Daily Smile

[{"type":"text","text":"When you leave your dog alone...."}]

Smile 6 16 24

Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>Daily Smile: Sunday, June 16, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

When you leave your dog alone....

Daily Smile: Sunday, June 16, 2024

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Outdoors

Public Lands

Almost a week after a semitruck carrying 

 flipped over in Yellowstone National Park and destroyed hundreds of hives, bees are still swarming around the area.

Thousands of bees are still homeless and visibly trying to survive in large groups on “bee trees” along U.S. Highway 191. 

Jim Holstein with Yellowstone Tour Guides has been passing through the area where the accident occurred. He took a photograph of one of the bee trees, where thousands of bees had completely covered a small lodgepole in a vast, buzzing swarm.

“They were still there on Monday,” Holstein told Cowboy State Daily. “It’s in the park between Big Sky and West Yellowstone. All the hives have been cleaned up, but there are quite a few bees left.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bee Trees"}]

Cheyenne beekeeper Michael Jordan is familiar with bee trees. They’re an indication that a colony of bees is actively house-hunting.

“It’s what's called a swarming mechanism,” he said. “The queen leaves and takes about half or more of the colony and moves to a new safe location.”

Jordan said this is common behavior for honeybees when a hive gets overpopulated. The existing queen will take nurse bees and guard bees to sustain herself in a temporary location while scouts search for a permanent 

“The scouts will search until they find a permanent location,” he said. “In the meantime, you'll have groups and colonies hanging in the trees as they regroup.”

A new permanent home could be a hole in a tree, a cave, or “anywhere that’s out of the water and elements,” said Jordan. 

Bee trees are meant to be staging locations so the scouts can lead the hive to their new home.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Sugar High"}]

When the scout bees find a suitable location for a permanent hive, their next priority is

“Right now, they’re looking for a sugar source,” Jordan said. “Bees need sugar to produce wax from their glands. Once they produce the wax and form it, they'll actively engineer foam in what we call a pendulum manner to make honeycombs.”

Bees instinctively know how to build hives, and their goal is to start propagating as soon as possible after a hive-destroying incident.

Once they find a suitable spot with plenty of sugar in the vicinity, maybe a rock formation or building near a flower-filled meadow, the queen will follow the scouts to the new hive. Instinctively, all the bees on the bee tree will follow her.

Jordan didn't think there would be any bee trees for tourists to see by Wednesday.

“Those clusters will be gone within 24 to 48 hours if they find a good location,” he said. “After that, there’s nothing you can do to recover them, because tracking them is very hard.

The fact that bee trees can still be seen along U.S. Highway 191 six days after the June 16 crash might indicate the bees are having trouble finding an ideal place for a new home. But it definitely means the colonies can be safely recovered.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Get Those Bees, Please"}]

Within 24 hours of the semitruck incident, people were at the scene removing the damaged honey boxes and trying to recover whatever remained of the bee colonies that had been residing in them.

Jordan said the first 48 hours are crucial in a bee recovery situation like that.

“If you can’t get new hives set up in 48 hours, the queens will migrate and leave a pheromone trail that the bees accommodating her in that hive will follow,” he said. “That’s what the bee trees are: thousands of bees accumulating around the queen.”

That means there’s a small window to safely save these bees before they become permanent Yellowstone residents.

Jordan’s strategy would be to place a mobile swarm trap. It’s basically a column of PVC pipes with buckets attached to either end. The height can be adjusted to get as close as possible to the colony clusters.

“If the bees accumulate in the buckets as a temporary hive, you can relocate them to an apiary and manage them there,” he said. “You can even hold a bucket up to the colony and shake them inside. That’s how you can naturally collect and remove a colony.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"No Bears — Yet"}]

Commercial vehicles like semitrucks are banned in Yellowstone, but U.S. Highway 191 is an exception. It hugs the western boundary of the park and is an important 55-mile thoroughfare between West Yellowstone and Big Sky, 

"They've enacted a temporary 35 mph speed limit on the section where the bees are," Holstein said. "People have to keep their windows up, and there's no stopping until crews can get the remaining bees rounded up."

When the bee trees disappear, it means the bees have found a suitable spot to rebuild their hive. Finding and removing the colony would be difficult, if not impossible, especially in the dangerous wilderness of Yellowstone.

[{"type":"text","text":"After all, who loves honey more than bears?"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“I haven’t seen any bears,” Holstein said. “Yet.”"}]

Jordan was more concerned about the people who lost their honey boxes and bee colonies. He knew how much money they had lost and must have spent trying to salvage whatever they could from the accident.

“From the way it looks. I’d think about 40-50% of what’s there is salvageable, maybe,” he said. “Each honey box can cost around $500 and generate around $2,000 in honey. 

"There could be two or three owners who lost their livelihood in that accident. That’s at least one whole company that has to rebuild.”

Bee tree swarm 6 22 26

<title>Millions Of Bees Swarm On Trees In Yellowstone After Hives Smashed In Semi Crash | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Almost a week after a semitruck carrying millions of bees flipped over in Yellowstone National Park and destroyed hundreds of hives, bees are still swarming on trees in the area. “It’s what's called a swarming mechanism,” said a Wyoming beekeeper.

Millions Of Bees Swarm On Trees In Yellowstone After Hives Smashed In Semi Crash

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

He drove a public bus in Casper in the 1920s and also took the wheel of trucks hauling contraband booze.

By the 1930s his two-bit criminal history in central Wyoming morphed into big-time felonies that made front-page headlines. 

In 1936, Harry Campbell hit the FBI’s most-wanted list as “public enemy No. 2” just behind his friend and partner in crime Alvin Karpis, the leader of the Karpis-Barker gang.

Campbell’s crime career ended with a life sentence at Alcatraz for his role in the kidnapping of a Minnesota brewery heir in 1934. 

But before he arrived at “The Rock” he, with Karpis, successfully escaped an FBI arrest in a hail of machine-gun bullets.

When the FBI finally put Campbell in cuffs for his role in the kidnapping, the raid was led by storied Director J. Edgar Hoover. 

The Casper Tribune-Herald reminded every one of Campbell’s ties to the region.

“Former Casper Man Seized In Toledo Today,” the paper reported on May 7, 1938. “Companion of Karpis Once Drove Bus to Evansville.”

Harry Campbell began life as a New Year’s baby in a new century, on Jan. 1, 1900, in McClintocksville, Pennsylvania. 

He was the fifth of seven children born to George and Melissa Campbell. By the second decade of his life, his family moved to Oklahoma, and it was in Tulsa where his bad seeds were initially sown.

FBI documents on the Barker gang state that Campbell grew up knowing the infamous brood and their mother, Kate “Ma” Barker.

“Many of the sons of Kate Barker became associates of these boys in their later lives,” states the file dated Nov. 19, 1936. “Harry Campbell and Volney Davis matured and grew up with the sons of Kate Barker, and in later years they collectively engaged in lives of crime.”

The file states that Campbell became a prominent member of the gang.

Reflecting on Campbell’s life of crime, The Tulsa World reported on May 8, 1936, that he was first arrested for vagrancy in the city on Dec. 25, 1920, and again on June 11, 1921, for bank robbery. 

He was sent to prison, but a few months later was acquitted and released.

Within the next two years, Campbell moved to the Casper region, first working the Salt Creek oil fields and then from 1923-1924 driving a bus between Casper and Evansville.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Transporting Booze"}]

The Casper Tribune-Herald reported on May 7, 1936, about how Campbell’s wayward nature continued to find opportunities in his new state.

“He gained a livelihood, police recall, from hauling truckloads of contraband liquor. Those were prohibition days, and on several occasions he ran afoul of the law because of his rum-running activities,” the newspaper reported. “He was arrested by Detective Miller in 1924 on a possession of whiskey charge.” 

But Campbell’s criminal ways meant he was never long in one region.

In August 1932, Campbell and Fred Barker were being sought for the murder J. Earl Smith, a Tulsa lawyer who had represented both men. 

Smith had told his wife that he was going to meet men to receive some money for his services. 

Campbell made the appointment to see Smith and had a dispute with the attorney about charges for his representation on a burglary charge. 

Smith’s body and bullet-riddled car were found outside Tulsa.

In August 1933, Campbell was sought in Oklahoma along with two others for the May 11 murder of a truck driver who tried to stop a safe robbery at a trucking firm.

In September 1933, FBI files state that Campbell was recruited by the Barker gang to St. Paul, Minnesota, and he brought along his second wife, Wynona Burdette, from Oklahoma. 

From Minnesota, the gang drove to Reno, Nevada, to meet with others, gamble and drink.

By late December they returned to Minnesota, and late in the month decided to kidnap Edward George Bremer, a St. Paul bank president and son of the owner of the Schmidt beer brewery. 

The plan was tentatively called off after two members left a kidnap planning session and shot and wounded a Northwest Airways employee who was wearing a uniform and mistaken for a cop.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Kidnapping"}]

By Jan. 17, 1934, plans were back on, and Campbell and Karpis were among five gang members watching for Bremer to drop off his daughter at school. 

When his car pulled up at a stop sign a half-block away after depositing her, a gang member stepped up to Bremer’s door with a gun, told him to move over.

Asecond gang member opened the right-side door, struck him in the head several times and shoved him on the floor, FBI files state.

Bremer’s car, followed by the remaining kidnappers, took off. Hoover later claimed it was Karpis and Campbell who initially grabbed him.

The kidnapping resulted in a $200,000 ransom payment with the serial numbers of the cash recorded by the FBI and later shared with banks across the country.

In its 1936 story, The Casper Herald-Tribune reported that Campbell and Karpis had visited Casper two years earlier in summer 1934 as the heat from law enforcement for the kidnapping made life harder elsewhere in the country.

The newspaper recounted how Campbell was seated at an “inconspicuous table” in a Casper night club and enjoying a drink and music trying to avoid attention. 

A former girlfriend reportedly walked up, called him by name and asked, “Where have you been keeping yourself?”

Campbell exchanged pleasantries and quickly disappeared from the club, the newspaper reported.

“The ensuing hunt for him revealed he had a companion and that the companion was Alvin Karpis,” the newspaper reported.

After the kidnapping and subsequent manhunt, the Casper paper noted that local law enforcement had been watchful for any appearance of Campbell in the region.

“Vigilance had been especially keen in recent weeks as the dragnet closed in on him and Karpis,” the newspaper reported.

When Fred Barker and Kate Barker were killed in a shootout with the FBI in January 1935, Campbell and Karpis were tracked to a hotel in Atlantic City. 

Campbell’s wife had been released by Oklahoma authorities with a promise from her brother that she would lead authorities to Campbell.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Shootout"}]

According to news reports, Campbell’s wife Burdette, aka Louise Campbell, and Karpis’ girlfriend traveled from Florida to join them. 

Some news reports state they tipped off authorities as to who was in the room next door.

When federal agents surrounded the motel room and banged on the door, news stories declared that Karpis sent a stream of bullets through it. 

Then Karpis, wearing trousers, slippers and overcoat, and Campbell with a pistol in his underwear, ran out the door as police returned fire. 

The pair stole a car and then engaged in a running gun battle with police as they gave chase.

“The bandits jumped into a coupe owned by Mrs. Harold Brand, and with Karpis lying on the running board and pumping shots from his machine gun, they drove out Kentucky Avenue,” the Press of Atlantic City reported on Jan. 21, 1935. 

“Store fronts and small hotels on Kentucky Avenue bore marks of the battle as the guns of the fleeing mobsters and police revolvers raked the entire section,” the story addded.

Karpis and Campbell escaped, ditched the car, kidnapped a man and stole his car, and then released him.

Karpis in his autobiography told a different story, writing that he and Campbell were in rooms individually with their women.

When the cops banged on the door, it was Campbell who opened up with the machine gun. No one was on the sideboard. He drove and Campbell fired at cops out of the back window.

The pair ended up in Toledo, Ohio, under assumed names. 

They recruited a couple of other criminals to join them and robbed a mail truck in Warren, Ohio, of $72,000. Two other known criminals were arrested, charged, and convicted, the FBI file states.

But a continued investigation showed Karpis and Campbell were responsible.

Meanwhile, Campbell married a 19-year-old girl named Gertrude as he used the name Clarence C. Miller on May 29, 1935.

On Nov. 7, 1935, five armed men with two machine guns, a shotgun and automatic pistols robbed a train in Garrettsville, Ohio, as it went from Detroit to Pittsburgh. 

Once again, Karpis and Campbell were leading the group, the FBI file states.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"But the law was closing in on them. "}]

They separated and Campbell stayed in Ohio under his assumed name and Karpis went south. 

Karpis was finally arrested on May 1, 1936, in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Hoover made sure he was present.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Arrest"}]

Six days later, agents closed in on Campbell in Toledo.

The FBI file states that at daybreak on May 7, 1936, agents raided his apartment and arrested him. Under his pillow was a .45-caliber Colt automatic pistol.

Headlines across the nation proclaimed the arrest. Hoover had flown to Cleveland to be on hand to bring him in.

Oklahoma prosecutors conceded that Hoover had a stronger case linking Campbell to the Bremer kidnapping than they had linking him to the 1932 murder of the attorney Smith.

Federal agents flew Campbell to Minnesota to face charges.

Campbell’s mother told the Tulsa Tribune for its May 7, 1936, edition that her son “has been a heartbreak to us.”

His parents and other siblings were described as “law abiding” and “mighty nice people” by a local Tulsa police detective.

Once in court on May 12 in Minneapolis, Campbell pleaded guilty to driving the kidnap car that took Bremer to the hideout and for guarding him for 21 days and then taking him to the place where he was released.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on May 13 that the federal prosecutor said Campbell’s split of the ransom money was only $6,000 to $7,000. 

The judge asked him if there was any reason that he shouldn’t sentence him that day.

“No,” the paper reported Campbell stated.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"He got a life sentence."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Alcatraz"}]

The Winona Daily News reported on May 15, 1936, that he was shackled and taken secretly to Leavenworth by federal marshals and FBI agents.

“Campbell, federal authorities admitted, undoubtably will be taken to Alcatraz Prison in San Francisco Bay,” the newspaper reported.

Online federal prison records for Alcatraz list him as prisoner No. 322 having been sent there from Leavenworth. 

The record describes Campbell as “of the vicious type and his past record is a definite indication that would not hesitate from using violence in order to obtain his freedom … committee recommends maximum supervision.”

The federal prison record states that Campbell had a daughter with his second wife “of whom he is very fond.”

“In all probability his asocial activities were conditioned by associates and environmental influences,” his record states. “He has always been an oil field worker but was unemployed for three years prior to his arrest.”

Campbell’s potential parole date was May 11, 1951. Where and when he was released from prison is unknown. 

A search for information about his life after prison was unsuccessful.

The website Find a Grave states that Campbell died in Amarillo, Texas, on Nov. 20, 1974. He was buried after a gravesite service in Rose Hill Memorial Park in Tulsa.

Campbell and Alcatraz 6 21 26

<title>From Casper To Alcatraz: Former Bus Driver Hit No. 2 On FBI’s Most Wanted List | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A former Casper oil worker and bus driver in the 1920s careened into a life of crime with the infamous Karpis-Barker gang that included murders, kidnappings, and robberies. He was the FBI's No. 2 most-wanted before being caught and sent to Alcatraz.

From Casper To Alcatraz: Former Bus Driver Hit No. 2 On FBI’s Most Wanted List

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Waterfalls shoot straight out of volcanic cliffsides, flinging themselves into canyons almost no one ever visits. 

Far from the boardwalks and pullouts, meanwhile, something that looks very much like a starfish seems to nap where no starfish should even be, sunning itself in a crystal-clear thermal pool in Yellowstone National Park. 

It’s all part of a hidden Yellowstone that most people never get to see — the Yellowstone that Bozeman filmmaker Stephen Quayle has spent five decades chasing with a camera and has finally stitched into a new film, 

“Only 5% of Yellowstone is visible by the roads or by the boardwalks around the geysers,” Quayle told Cowboy State Daily. 

Another thin, 10% slice belongs to the hardy few willing to trek for miles into grizzly bear and wolf territory. 

But from a helicopter, “the most gorgeous” waterfalls and the most intriguing geothermal pools can be seen in stunning aerial views. 

Photographing from the air takes a million-dollar camera lens, Quayle said, one that can take high-resolution images from at least 2,000 feet away. 

That’s the minimum height recommended by the FAA for flying over places like national parks. Any lower could violate federal laws if an aircraft disturbs wildlife or park visitors.

“That way we can present to people the Yellowstone that really is,” he said. “And it’s breathtakingly wonderful. It is not just a wonder of the world, it is 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Fateful Party Weekend"}]

Quayle’s relationship with Yellowstone began when he was a college student with time on his hands and weekends to burn in glorious summer road trips. 

Yellowstone was perfect for that when you’re a young man from Bozeman, Quayle said. 

“I went there because that’s where everybody used to go and party,” he admitted. “And from Bozeman, they drive down to the inner West Yellowstone, but I would take a diversion. That doesn’t mean I didn’t partake of some of the wild stuff in those days. 

"But the bottom line is that it was so close, and in those days you could go from one feature to the next and never see another car,” Quayle added.

The more he photographed Yellowstone, the more he wanted to go back. It felt like becoming lost in another world, one that seemed to rearrange itself every time he visited.

At first, Quayle stuck to closeups. Think bacterial mats, colorful mineral formations, tiny, iridescent insects — all reflecting his interest at the time in abstract art.

“Most photographers would take a leaf,” he said. “I would take the veins in the leaf.”

But over time, Quayle saw that Yellowstone was like this gigantic living creature, breathing, pulsing, moving around. 

That could never be captured with microshots of leaf veins and abstract rock patterns. 

For the real Yellowstone, Quayle realized he had to do something to widen his scope. 

On a map, Yellowstone National Park looks vast, but knowable. 

You can drive in and easily hit the biggest, most popular features — Old Faithful, Grand Prismatic, the Canyon — and drive back out with a phone full of photos and a comfortable sense that you’ve now seen Yellowstone.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"It’s a beautiful illusion. "}]

For one thing, Yellowstone is among the most dynamic landscapes on earth. Fire and water are shaping and reshaping its landscapes all the time. 

The park is also vast —  3,500 square miles — and the majority is too dangerous and too inaccessible for most people’s hiking abilities. 

“It’s a matter of practicality,” Quayle said. “Because some of these waterfalls come out of the side of a mountain and you’ve got wolves in the park and you’ve got grizzlies in the park … and the wolves are not, ‘oh they’re so cute,’ and it’s not Yogi Bear time.”

Some areas are even untouchable when it comes to horseback, Quayle added, and the park also has rules on where people can go by horseback, which helps protect fragile areas. 

Quayle himself didn’t even realize at first just how much he’d been missing. Until one day he got the idea to take a helicopter ride and look down on this creation. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Yellowstone became a whole new world. "}]

Geyser basins became vast, veined paintings. Rivers resolved into networks tying distant waterfalls together. Thermal scars appeared in forest clearings that had no signs, no names, no crowds.

“It’s like a whole different world,” he said. “You literally wouldn’t know you were on planet Earth.”

The view from 2,000 feet is ultimately the one that captured and held Quayle’s attention the best. 

Waterfalls spilling over volcanic rocks like crystal threads of light into dark and lonely slot canyons and broad amphitheaters that had been carved by wind and water and time. 

There were blue-and-white ribbons twisting over black volcanic rock, framed by forests and meadows that melted into the mists of morning. Scenes like this often felt less like sightseeing, and more like eavesdropping on a secret earth, as if he, himself, was an alien. 

One time he saw what looked like a perfect, starfish-like form sunning itself in a crystal clear thermal pool.

“Imagine a starfish, a perfect starfish, in water that’s too hot to have any life,” he said. “How do you get that kind of design in geothermal pools?”

Quayle said he’s shared the images with researchers, who are still evaluating them.

Quayle has combined the footage taken from the air with snapshots he’s taken at Yellowstone National Park over a 50-year period, creating a feature-length film he calls “Yellowstone: Above & Below.” 

His goal with the film is to help people access even the most inaccessible places in the park, as well as raise funds to help support the park. 

Ten percent of the film’s proceeds will be donated to the park’s official nonprofit, Yellowstone Forever, to help fund conservation, education and stewardship of the park.

“Yellowstone is alive,” the film’s narrator says over sweeping aerial shots. “Every breath of steam, every shifting terrace is part of an ancient story written in stone and fire.”

Creating the film has taken Quayle a lifetime, including about four or five years worth of helicopter rides.

“We were in a helicopter for sometimes six and eight hours a day,” he said, a ride that was paid for by the hour. “I mean, it’s a lot of time in the air, but there’s no other way to see it all, to reference it.”

To capture the views, Quayle rented a gyro-stabilized camera system with a long-range lens once used for military surveillance. He also hired Hollywood cameraman Nel Boshoff to operate it.

The camera is so precise, Quayle said, it can focus on an elk 2 miles ahead and then zoom in on its eyelashes. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Where Science Meets Spirit"}]

Ask Quayle why he keeps coming back to Yellowstone after 50 years, and his answer lies somewhere between science and spirit.

From above, the branching runoff channels remind him of blood vessels in a human body, and everywhere he sees beauty born from volcanic violence.

“It’s a place of wonder and warning,” he says in the film. “It is fragile, and yet holds the strength of worlds beneath its surface.”

For most visitors, Yellowstone will always mean the 5% everyone else sees — Old Faithful, the canyon, a glimpse of bison in the valley. 

The remaining 95% — Quayle’s waterfalls in hidden canyons, starfish patterns at the bottom of a boiling pool, and backcountry geysers with no signs or names — are like something from a dream, revealed by one man’s uncommon obsession. 

If the images leave viewers feeling like they’ve gotten as close to the edge of creation as they ever will from a living-room couch, that’s fine with Quayle. That feeling is everything about Yellowstone that he’s ever wanted to say.

Most tourists see just 5% of Yellowstone from roads and boardwalks. Bozeman filmmaker Stephen Quayle has spent 50 years filming the places most never reach. “It’s like a whole different world,” he said. “You literally wouldn’t know you’re on planet Earth.”

Daily Smile: Sunday, June 16, 2024

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