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[{"type":"text","text":"Father of the year....."}]

You still here 8 27 24

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

<title>You Still Here? Tuesday, August 27, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Father of the year.....

You Still Here? Tuesday, August 27, 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

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

Yellowstone National Park’s “first” petroglyph remains one of its most controversial. Even calling it a petroglyph could raise the ire of some archaeologists.

While Yellowstone was a significant site for many indigenous cultures that left behind plenty of artifacts, rock art was — and remains — rare in the park. 

[{"type":"text","text":"That changed with the discovery of the Old Faithful petroglyphs in 1977."}]

To this day, archaeologists are divided over how to interpret these petroglyphs and the stories they tell. It’s a debate that’s only become more interesting in recent years.

“Not everyone agrees that it's a petroglyph,” said retired archaeologist Mavis Greer. “For me, there’s no question that it is, but who made it and when are still very controversial.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Old Faithful Petroglyphs"}]

Greer is one of the few archaeologists who has seen and studied the Old Faithful petroglyphs.

In 2011, she wrote a short paper on the site with fellow archaeologists John Greer and Elaine Skinner Hale, who was on Yellowstone’s Cultural Resource staff at the time, and even that was subject to controversy.

“I was very excited to see the site, but I don’t think (the National Park Service) was all that happy about what we wrote,” she said. “They don’t want any publications anywhere showing that this and other rock art sites have been found in Yellowstone.”

Greer didn’t discover the Old Faithful petroglyphs. A Yellowstone visitor, Nicole Cromwell, wrote a letter to park staff informing them that she’d found two petroglyphs carved into the rock near an extinct geyser in 1977.

Today, the petroglyphs are in an area that isn’t accessible to the public. Greer is one of the few who’s been able to see them.

“The petroglyphs were made when the pool was dry, and the rocks are ideal height for sitting, so this would have been a good camping area in the past,” she said.

Both petroglyphs are circular shapes with spokes and other shapes emanating from the center, resembling wheels. What the design was meant to depict has been debated for the last 49 years. 

[{"type":"text","text":"The prevailing interpretation is that these petroglyphs are wheels. "}]

Specifically, they depict the wheels of wagons or, potentially, stagecoaches carrying white Europeans into northwest Wyoming.

That was the assumption when the petroglyphs were first studied in the 1970s. 

Paul Sanders with the office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist reached the same conclusion during a 2008 survey of the site.

Many archaeologists don’t even believe it’s Aboriginal rock art. They think the “wheels” were carved by white Europeans rather than any of the tribes associated with Yellowstone.

[{"type":"text","text":"Greer doesn’t agree."}]

“There are lots of wagon wheels in rock art across the northern plains, and none of them are similar to what's at Old Faithful,” she said. “I believe they were made by Native Americans before first contact with Europeans.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Shields And Status"}]

Greer believes the petroglyphs depict the shields of indigenous warriors, a common image on rock art panels throughout North America.

Most petroglyphs are believed to have had spiritual or ceremonial significance to the tribes and individuals that created them. According to Greer, shields fall under the umbrella of ceremonial art.

“The design of the petroglyph was whatever was on the actual shield,” she said. “There had to have powerful symbols on their shields, and they would often make petroglyphs of their shields where others could see that they had that power.”

Shields would have been unique to each individual, and covered with images, designs, and colors representing their personal power and position. 

[{"type":"text","text":"That’s why shield petroglyphs are so common, but none are the same."}]

“It’s a geometric-type design that was used by a lot of different tribes,” Greer said. “They were very ornate and colorful, and depicted powerful animals, spiritual helpers, and other things that helped them not get shot.”

Greer believes shield petroglyphs need to be interpreted through the lens of intertribal warfare. Shields were important status symbols for men in indigenous tribes.

“They had a lot of conflict between tribes because that was a way that men got status in their tribe,” she said. “In order to gain any status, you had to have engaged in something that showed you were brave and an outstanding warrior.”

In that sense, a shield petroglyph was like a self-portrait. It was a one-to-one depiction of the shield its artist used in battle, down to the same designs and colors.

While most of the color has vanished in the hundreds or thousands of years since they were carved, the intricate and unique designs and symbols remain.

“The design of the petroglyph is whatever design was on the actual shield that they were using when they were out in a battle,” Greer said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Which Wheel Or No Wheel?"}]

There are legitimate petroglyphs depicting the wagons of European settlers. 

, one of Wyoming’s most renowned petroglyph sites.

The confirmed wagon petroglyph at Castle Gardens is one of the reasons Greer cited for why she doesn’t believe the Old Faithful petroglyphs depict wagon wheels.

For one thing, the circular designs at Old Faithful are very intricate and asymmetrical. The wheels on wagon petroglyphs are much simpler, emulating the spoked design of an actual wagon wheel.

Also, Greer isn’t aware of any petroglyphs of wheels without wagons. It’s something she researched for her 2011 paper.

“Wheels, by themselves, are even less common in rock art than complete wagons or vehicles,” she said. “The only possible single wheel we found is at Newspaper Rock in eastern Utah, and its identification is based only on its circular form with rays, not any historical association with a wagon or other items, (so) there is no evidence that it’s a wheel.”

For Greer, it’d be highly unlikely to find a petroglyph depicting a wagon wheel without also depicting a wagon. Meanwhile, it’s quite common to find isolated shield petroglyphs.

“When these wheels are compared with the Old Faithful figures, they both are round with spokes or rays,” she said. “The similarities end there.”

There is another type of wheel that had great spiritual and ceremonial significance to indigenous tribes: medicine wheels. 

Medicine wheels, like the Medicine Wheel National Historic Landmark in the Bighorn Mountains, were usually constructed in sacred areas.

While the Old Faithful geyser basin could easily have been a sacred area deserving of a medicine wheel, Greer doesn’t think that’s a likely explanation for the petroglyphs.

“When viewed from a stylistic perspective of cultures in the northwestern Plains and Rocky Mountains, a shield design is a better explanation.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Who, When, Why"}]

So, if the Old Faithful petroglyphs weren’t depicting wagon wheels, and they weren’t made by a European, who made them? When were they made?

[{"type":"text","text":"Those questions, according to Greer, are much harder to answer.  "}]

“There are just too many tribes that were traveling through Yellowstone in the last thousand years,” she said. “Even with a lot of investigation, I don’t think anyone would be comfortable saying its Shoshone as opposed to the Crow, Blackfeet, or Kiowa. 

"The Cheyenne and Arapahoe were there, too. Any one of them could have made those petroglyphs.”

Determining the age of the petroglyphs would also be difficult, but that’s another reason why Greer believes they aren’t depicting wagon wheels. They look too old.

“The petroglyphs are in a geologic situation where if a European had made it, it would look a lot fresher than it does,” she said. “It looks like it's been there for some time.”

Greer didn’t have enough data to give an approximate age range for the Old Faithful petroglyphs, but she’s confident that they’re too old to be wagon wheels. 

She believes the petroglyphs are older than the first wagon wheels in western North America.

“My only thought is that they were created pre-contact,” she said. “That's not saying much, because the contact period for this area starts in 1800, but it’s something.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Not So Open Secrets"}]

The Old Faithful petroglyphs remain the best-known petroglyphs in Yellowstone National Park, but even they aren’t common knowledge to the typical tourist. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Anyone who wants to see them can’t."}]

“It's in an area of the park where you cannot go without a ranger,” Greer said. That makes it easier to keep the location secluded.”

While there’s plenty of accessible information on Yellowstone’s archaeology, petroglyphs, and other indigenous rock art are rarely mentioned. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Greer believes that’s simultaneously deliberate and accidental."}]

Greer is aware of other Yellowstone petroglyphs and rock art panels discovered within the last two decades, but information about them is scarce. 

That’s partly because they’re inaccessible to most tourists and scientists.

“I think most archeologists thought there was rock art in Yellowstone, but nobody had gone out there and really searched for it before,” she said. “Doing a rock art survey in the park is not a simple thing. You’d need money, horses, and a camping crew to find those places.”

Greer also believes the National Park Service has a vested interest in restricting what gets published about these sites, at least until they’re better understood. 

From what she’s heard, the newly discovered sites are more fragile than the Old Faithful petroglyphs.

“The new sites have been paintings rather than petroglyphs,” she said. “That’s just the nature of the rock that they're dealing with. 

"On limestone and even types of granite, they're more likely to have paintings than petroglyphs.”

Greer’s 2011 paper on the Old Faithful petroglyphs is still the most recent scholarly work on any rock art in Yellowstone, and it’s “still controversial,” according to Greer.

“That one’s been known for a long time, and I wouldn't say there are a lot of people who think it's a confirmed petroglyph yet,” she said.

The ultimate takeaway is that there’s much more to learn about the history of indigenous tribes in Yellowstone, and the known and yet-to-be-discovered rock art will deepen our understanding of the park’s place in human history.

“There's been a lot of work on indigenous use of Yellowstone prior to and even after the coming of Europeans,” she said. “The history of the park goes back thousands of years, and these rock art panels show us there’s still so much to discover and learn.”

Yellowstone Petroglyph 2 6 21 26

<title>50 Years Of Controversy Over Yellowstone's Only Known 'Petroglyph' | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Yellowstone's “first” petroglyph remains controversial. Some archaeologists don't buy it. While Yellowstone was a significant site for indigenous cultures rock art was rare. That changed with the discovery of the Old Faithful "petroglyphs" in 1977.

50 Years Of Controversy Over Yellowstone's Only Known 'Petroglyph'

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Jackie Dorothy.

Jackie Dorothy

Wyoming's oil boom in the late 1800s quickly became a frontier land war as former gunmen, prospectors and even nobles from Europe converged on the Salt Creek and Teapot Dome oil fields near Casper.

The cowboys of the Hole-in-the-Wall area were just learning their outlaw trade when the first oil claim had been made in the Salt Creek oil field. 

In the fall of 1889, an oil baron from Pennsylvania, Mark Shannon, known to his associates as a successful wildcatter, producer and promoter, saw the possibilities in the land that the cattle barons had scorned. 

Shannon had started secretly drilling the first well the year the Johnson County War was first erupting. 

While the cattlemen saw nothing in the sparse grasslands, alkali creeks and oil film on the soda lakes, Shannon saw a fortune to be made in oil, according to Ed Bille who grew up in the oil fields during the 1920s Teapot Dome Scandal. 

Bille documented these early days of lawlessness in his 1978 book, “Early Days at Salt Creek and Teapot Dome.”

“When the well came in, the derrick was fenced and guarded and an air of secrecy hung over the project for a few months,” Bille wrote. “The reason given was that Shannon wanted to be sure of a clear title to the land.”

In the days before the automobile became commonplace, Shannon hauled his oil to Casper by wagons using 12 to 18 horses. 

The string teams would then return with a load of supplies while people wondered out loud what this oil was even good for. Hundreds of barrels of the black gold went unused for those first decades, and newspapers lamented the waste. 

In the meantime, there was plenty of scandal associated with those early days of the Teapot Dome and Salt Creek oil fields before the oil hit the fan in the 1920s.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Wildcatting"}]

Early day wildcatters were prospectors who took a string of tools and drilled for oil in places it was not known to exist. 

Bille said they came from all walks of life, including ranchers, doctors, lawyers and merchants. 

Those flocking to this new oil boom were also promoters, “fast-buck artists” and former outlaws, such as Butch Cassidy’s best friend Elzy Lay, who made his own claims in Wyoming oil fields after getting out of prison. 

Oil industry historian James A. Clark said that the wildcatter had to be gambler, trader and entrepreneur

“He had a lot of things the old gold miner had,” Clark said. “Many died poor, but a few hit it big.”

These oil pioneers quickly moved into the oil fields located at the southwest edge of the Powder River Basin.

“Land titles were often vague, unstable, and insecure, and claim jumping was a fact of life in the Salt Creek Field from its beginning until the Leasing Act became law in 1920,” Bille wrote.

A location notice filed in the county records would supposedly hold the land for a year. Oil prospectors had to dig or drill a hole in what was called “validating the claim.” Sometimes, three men operating a spring pole outfit could put down three or four validating holes in a day.

Havoc reigned in the oil field as men argued who had the right to the land. 

Confrontations, threats, and violence were common during these early years. 

Often, these arguments were settled by the one who had the quickest draw and was best at handling his gun.

This alkali land, forsaken by stockmen, was soon eyed by nobility of the old world, according to Bille. 

Promoters had brought Wyoming oil to national and international attention by the early 1900s, and a large number of European investors were attracted by the growing realization of oil potential in the Salt Creek area. European  barons and princes began to invest in the development.

At the end of 1903, Shannon sold his entire Wyoming properties — refinery, wells, placer claims — for $350,000 to a group of Europeans. That would be about $13.2 million today.

This set off a fierce rivalry that was fought from 1905-1910 between the Holland-owned “Wyoming Syndicate” and local investors.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Hired Guns"}]

Land titles in Salt Creek and Teapot Dome were confusing and unsecured, so many wildcatters and oil companies hired gunmen, known as line riders, to protect their claims.

“Line riders were men of nerve, and they put up a fight for their companies equal to the fights on the range made in the earlier days by the cowboys for what they considered their rights,” wrote Harold Roberts in his book “Salt Creek.”

 in 1910-1920 only slightly deviated from a decade before when differences were frequently settled with .45-caliber revolvers and Winchester rifles. 

During these early gold rush days in Wyoming, it was not uncommon for owners and claim jumpers to mysteriously vanish.

Bille said that reputations had been built during that outlaw time. Oil field claimants were thus more likely to back down in the face of a gun held by someone who was known to have used it in the recent past against horse rustlers.

Early cowboys and gunmen, such as William “Missou” Hines, were hired and well-known for quickness and accuracy with a gun. Hines, who became a line rider in the 1910s, was an example of what the lawless Wyoming oil fields had become.

Dan Adamson, a cattleman from Nebraska, wrote in the Jan. 1, 1934, Omaha Daily Journal/Stockman that Missou was known to whip out his gun and shoot at even his friends for sport. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Adamson said that became known as a “Missou joke.\""}]

When the town of Casper was still young, Missou was riding down the street with his fellow cowhand, Texan Charley "Red River" Stuart. 

Adamson said that Missou pointed out that Red River was riding a horse with a reputation as a hard bucker and asked if Red River could really ride such a horse.

[{"type":"text","text":"“You bet your life; every jump in the road!\" Red River responded."}]

Missou promptly whipped out his gun and shot under the horse's nose. The old bucker went after Red River in earnest and threw him off in the street.

Another time, Adamson said a magician was performing in Casper and claimed that he could catch a bullet shot from a pistol in his mouth.

“Of course this was hooey as his partner in the audience was supposed to do the shooting, changing to a blank cartridge,” Adamson said.

Just as the head performer got through with his explanation, Missou got his gun out and hollered, "Are you ready?"

“The fellow took one look at Missou and bolted for the door, but Missou punctured his coat tail as he went out,” Adamson said.

Missou was first hired to guard the oil fields by engineer William Fitzhugh, described as a fiery tempered, capable, energetic person who could be both generous and very difficult to deal with. 

Fitzhugh hired Missou to keep trespassers off the field and discourage the jumping of his claims by others, Bille wrote.

Fitzhugh also took the fight to the courts because he openly had plans to “jump” every claim in the field and take the entire Salt Creek area. 

He believed that the titles which others had were no good and promptly filed on all of it and started drilling wells to acquire title. He clashed with representatives of the Dutch properties, The Midwest Co., and others.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Evicting Squatters"}]

Since much of the land in the Salt Creek area was public domain, homesteaders could settle the area as “mineral claims” or “desert claims.” They just had to do a certain amount of assessment work to get a patent to the land.

With the new developments, and new strikes in different sands, much of the alkali flats became valuable oil land. Squatters subsequently settled on some of that land in an effort to lay claim to it.

“Many of these squatters, attempting to establish holdings in the oil fields, were attacked and beaten,” Bille wrote. “In some cases, contestants moved in with teams of four and six horses, and plenty of strong-arm help, and moved the squatters’ shacks.”

While there was the threat of serious trouble hanging in the air, most of these eviction events occurred without major incident. In fact, as the horses dragged away the shacks, large crowds would gather to watch.  

Eventually, the oil field was mostly under the domain of Midwest, which had won the right to most of the land in Salt Creek and Teapot Dome through strong armed tactics.

However, even as Missou and other hired guns began hauling freight instead of flashing their rifles, trouble of another kind was ahead for the infamous fields of Salt Creek and Teapot Dome.

Corrupt politicians had also seen the potential of the oil-rich area as oil became more in demand. The fight for control of the Salt Creek and Teapot Dome oil fields soon drew the attention of the world. 

However, those who once patrolled the oil fields knew that the 

was not the beginning, but only the continuation of a fight that had been going on for decades in the lawless land of Wyoming. 

Teapot Rock inset Getty 6 21 26

<title>Teapot Dome Oil Fields Were Plenty Scandalous Before Historic Scandal Of 1920s | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Years before armed Marines invaded Wyoming and a cabinet secretaries went to prison for the Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s, those same oil fields were already plenty scandalous. Arguments over land were often settled by whoever had the quickest draw.

Teapot Dome Oil Fields Were Plenty Scandalous Before Historic Scandal Of 1920s

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Law Enforcement

Crime & Courts

Sound surveillance technology has gone largely unnoticed and un-debated in Wyoming while residents clash over video-surveillance license plate reader cameras, like Flock.

ome Wyoming law enforcement agencies use microphone surveillance systems in Cheyenne to detect gunshots, authorities have confirmed.

Gunshot detection sensors are acoustic detection systems built to alert authorities to gunfire and help them locate it. 

ShotSpotter, a prevalent system brand, relies on an artificial intelligence algorithm and network of microphones to identify gunshots.

While Wyoming debates surveillance cameras, what's gone largely unsung and un-debated is sound sensor technology. Law enforcement authorities in Cheyenne say they are using noise sensors to detect gunshot sounds. Some worry it could lead to "mission creep.”

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