11 June 2024.
An update on this year’s honeybees.
Rain Rain Rain!
We have had MUCH more rain this year than the last 10 year average. Of the locations that I manage hives – the rainfall has been between 55% and 80.0% higher than the last 10 years’ average rainfall.
The highest actual rainfall – is 40.74″ – at a property in Van Zandt county. (Numbers as of June 11 2024)
The high and seemingly constant rainfall – means that the bees have not been able to bring in much nectar for food (and the extra nectar – is what they would have used to make honey).
The bees don’t fly in the rain – and though we have some flowers – rainfall washes the nectar from the flowers, and the plants need 3-4 days of sunshine to recover and thicken up the diluted nectar for pollinators to benefit – and it’s rained (in most areas) at least every 2-3 days (on average) up until this last week.
Hives have been VERY low on food stores since the rains started- so I am feeding consistently through the summer months.
Each hive has a 1-gallon feeder in the box – and I may feed supplemental syrup with inverted 1-gallon buckets on the hives. And you may see me on the properties a bit more frequently.
Bottom line… I currently manage approximately 500 hives in North Texas. There’s no honey harvest this year from any of my managed locations, because of low food resources in nature. When beekeepers need to feed the bees to keep them alive – there’s no honey to be made. As the year progresses – in the next months I will be replacing hives and /or queens that have not made it through the rain period of no food.
See more info here: http://www.bohemianutopia.com/?p=2798
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