That's interesting. Crafty critters.

The two options for dealing with skunks raiding hives is either to raise the boxes out of their reach but that puts to boxes high enough to make working them difficult or using a deterrant like carpet tack strips.
I don't have skunks here but if I did I would use nixalite bird spikes as know those will draw blood.

vewwy carefuwwy!
*Elmer Fudd 1956*

Set for coyotes, you wont miss a skunk

Hewwwy thewwe!

A few years ago, before I got into ADC. I was trapping some skunks in exchange for fur bearer permission on some of the best ground I have seen.
Caught most of them close to a set of hives. At the time I was under the impression they were eating the dead bees around the hive. But I see now
that I was incorrect.
Another Beekeeper later told me the dead Bees I was finding around the hive were related to some form of Bee Dysentery or something on that order.

Salmon cat food, dry works well too.