Forest fire smoke affecting bees?

[SusanM]

Hello all!

This is my first year beekeeping. I bought a two deep hive, already established about 2 months ago. The bees are cariolans. The hive is extremely healthy, no mites or disease (please don't hate me ---and going gang busters. I even added a western super 6 weeks ago and the bees started filling out the new frames with honey. The hive HAD gobs of honey, a beautiful brood pattern, and up to two weeks ago, I thought was going to gave enough honey/pollen stores for winter. But the area (southern Oregon) has been getting blanketed with forest fire smoke almost non stop for 2-3 weeks now. The air quality is so bad some days one can smell the smoke and get headaches from it. The visibility is very poor and looks like a bad day in L.A. The fires are 100-150 miles away from me. On Sunday, I checked the hive and most of the honey was gone! Empty comb. There was some nectar available, some pollen, too. Deeps were definately lighter than the last time I checked. During the days of heavy smoke, I noticed that there were not as many bees as on the sunny clear days. There was no signs of robbing, or swarm/superceedure cells, and the queen is still laying but not as much. Brood pattern is still OK but not a lot of brood. Lots and lots of bees, though. The bees seemed a bit agitated on Sunday and swarmy around me, even when I used the smoker (I think this extra smoke justed made them madder). There still seems to be enough wild flowers and clover around to gather from.

Question: is the forest fire smoke affecting the bees and making them consume their honey--as in getting ready to flee a real fire? Has anyone ever experienced this with their hives (lots of smoke in area)....and is there really anything a beekeeper can do about it, except wait it out and hope for the best. I really am saddened by the whole thing, since the hive was doing so well before the smoke came. Or, could this be something else, like the queen is failing and I need to replace her. She is last year's queen.

Thanks for your help and insight!

Susan

[Michael Bush]

The forest fire will not affect them unless the smoke is so think they can't breath or the heat is so high the wax melts. The idea that they consume honey in preparation for fleeing is an obvious myth. If you ever tried to smoke them out of tree or other location you would find they NEVER leave no matter how much smoke. If you open a lot of hives with and without smoke you'll see the same number of bees with their heads in cells either way.

[Bear Creek Steve]

Susan,

I didn't notice any particular change in activity in my apiary when we had the Waldo Canyon in late June. The wildfire burned 247 houses to the ground in Colorado Springs just to the north of my colonies.

We had some of "your smoke" come in a week ago, and it sure makes for fantastic sunrises and sunsets.

Steve

[Ben Brewcat]

I had several colonies survive a hundred yards directly downwind from a major fire we had here a few years back. Luckily it burned to hot and so fast that it had moved on within about 18 hours (a hot January with 60 MPH winds); the area was closed before I could go in and even wrap them. They were fine, if stressed, though I smelled smoke on the comb for a couple weeks afterwards.

[Acebird]

I am thinking your honey was consumed because of a drought not producing any nectar and a large population of bees already established in the hive. It would take a while to crash the population when there is nothing to forage even when the queen stops laying.

[Bear Creek Steve]

Acebird: Good point. I would agree and think that the drought and following nectar dearth is what has affected us in the west this year. I'm presently at 40% of last years harvest.

Susan: I don't think that there is anything that you can do to counter all the smoke in the air. just hang in there.

Ben: I'm sure that you got smoke from our Waldo Canyon fire since the winds were blowing north and glad to hear that the odor in the hives deminished so rapidly. One thought is, it might help you sell smoke flavored honey this year. If you attend CSBA functions I may run into you sometime.

Forest fires aare a continuing concern for those of us beekeepers who live in the west. The Easterners generally don't worry too much about wildfires. Not only can we potentially lose our apiaries but we can also lose our residences. We are very grateful to all of the human effort and financial assistance that has and will be put into fighting forest fires.

Side Note: Yesterday I chased a bear cub out of my garage who was sizing up my beer fridge while mama (~ 300#) was standing by outside on guard duty. My solar powered electric bear fence keeps the apiary safe -- so far.

Bear Creek Steve