Climate change is definitely upon us and the speed of change is rapid. Anyone who works with nature in any form can see this and beekeeping is no different. Those of us who have been keeping bees for a long time (in my case nearly thirty years) have experienced these changes first hand. So, how is climate change affecting beekeeping?
The first, and possibly the biggest change is during the winter. When I first started, our bees would go quiet towards the end of September or beginning of October and then, apart from the odd cleansing flight, we wouldn’t see them flying in numbers again until March. Bees in the UK and indeed in most countries are designed to have an off period What Do Honeybees Do In The Winter? . These days we often see them flying regularly and in numbers throughout the winter.
Bees Flying Out To Find Forage
When they fly like this they are using energy but can’t find any forage and so need a lot more food left on the hive during the winter. In the past we would be able to get away with just a full brood box of stores, now we need at least a super as well. Checking the availability of stores is really important as is the feeding of fondant during the winter if they are short.
The mild winter weather also give us problems with queens. Rather than stopping laying and having a good rest the queen quite often continues laying well into the winter and maybe all through. This results in a lot more mouths that need feeding and, most importantly, the queens running out of eggs sooner and this shortens their lives.
When I first started, a three year old queen was usually still good and sometimes they would continue into season four and very occasionally season five. Now, queens are exhausted often after just two seasons and i was speaking to a very good bee farmer last week who says he only allows his queens to go through one season as he finds they are so poor in season two.
With the queen laying in the winter this also gives the varroa mite somewhere to lay and so spring numbers can often be high. We need to consider this when doing our varroa treatment.
In the UK we often get very wet Aprils now. This means that just as the colony has built up the food supply is effectively turned off. I’ve heard it said that because of this more colonies now starve in the spring than in the winter. We need to look carefully at spring feeding in order to avoid this. Feeding of 1:1 sugar syrup may be required to keep the colony going but you must be careful not to get this in any honey that you harvest later and so as soon as the flow of nectar resumes, remove the feeders.
Likewise in summer, we can have very hot periods where there is little or no moisture in the ground and so plants produce a lot less nectar even where they survive the dry conditions. Just because there are a lot of flowers around it doesn’t mean there is a lot of nectar. This can often happen just after your sring harvest and so be careful not to take too much.
All of this sounds like really bad news, and to be honest, it is.
However, it’s always good to end on a high. If you can manage your colonies well through the winter you will start the spring with much bigger colonies and so they will start bringing in the nectar and making surplus honey much earlier. Of course big colonies are also more likely to swarm early!!!!
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