With droughts out west, arctic cold in the south and the middle and northern tier states seeing record snowfalls (it is snowing here in CT again) It got me thinking about weather extremes in history and I came across "the year with no summer" (1816).
So apparently in 1816 spring sprung to a warm start but by May all the fruit trees in the North East got hit by frost and the fruit crop was lost, frosts in June did in much of the corn crop and then July rolled around and Northern New England got 2 snow storms which did in the remainder of the corn. In Vermont by July 28th live stock deaths numbered in the 100,000s after many pastures were covered with as much as 12 inches of snow.
Imagine the bee industry today if we had a season like that? I haven't seen any reports of bee losses that year, but I can't imagine any could have survived in the north. Perhaps it was the beginning of southern bees coming north.
So apparently in 1816 spring sprung to a warm start but by May all the fruit trees in the North East got hit by frost and the fruit crop was lost, frosts in June did in much of the corn crop and then July rolled around and Northern New England got 2 snow storms which did in the remainder of the corn. In Vermont by July 28th live stock deaths numbered in the 100,000s after many pastures were covered with as much as 12 inches of snow.
Imagine the bee industry today if we had a season like that? I haven't seen any reports of bee losses that year, but I can't imagine any could have survived in the north. Perhaps it was the beginning of southern bees coming north.