Swarm Season / Too Much Rain

I do not think that in 45 years, I have ever seen as much rain as we have received here in North Texas over the last two months.  Too much rain can be detrimental to our agriculture.

Besides the obvious problem of erosion of our topsoil, there are other problems with too much rain.  When rain falls over fields of blooming flowers, it can wash out the nectar from the flowers, leaving hungry pollinators.  Generally at this time of year, the bees have an excess of nectar that they are bringing into their hives.  But with a shortage of nectar, there is a serious possibility of starvation.  Yes – even with all the rain and flowers… that does not mean that there is available nectar for them to forage upon.

Below are pictures of bees that swarmed recently to a crape myrtle tree.   They settled on a branch about 5′ off the ground, and sat long enough to build 2 smallish pieces of comb under their cluster.  The homeowner called and I responded within the hour to remove the swarm from their back yard.