I am in CA and have a very hard season so far. Essentially no flow.. been feeding since June.... My other commercial friends are reporting similar... one friend is already in 250,000 pounds of syrup and it is only August! We are also hearing guys are removing empty supers in Montana and North Dakota.... I have also been seeing excessive queen failures immediately after hot spells... the queens are become drone layers... I have read several research papers now suggesting that a short period of increased hive temp (104) will result in the queens stored sperm dyeing.... wondering if that is what is happening.... and if others are having a very poor year for flow.
Is anybody else having a hard season?
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Sorry to hear that. Normally that's my story - but so far this year it's been the best season ever - partly due to excellent weather, but also the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in reduced grass-cutting of road verges and field margins.
LJ
LJ
Lee, I can second that over here on the East Coast, things went pretty well. I had to start feeding in June also, but that is typical for my area. My 20 hives produced about 360# of tulip poplar honey for me. A good year here in Virginia with our very short flow. Had a few hives disappear as a result of not providing enough supplemental feed and lost a few queens too. Things are looking up now that crepe myrtle is blooming.
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RangerLee I am having the worse year, since I've started keeping bees. My bees have not done ANY work on their supers. In the past I've extracted around the last week in July, this year......................nothing :scratch: I've taken off the, empty, supers, and have started feeding syrup. I've one hive that the queen is not doing much, so bad at one time that I thought they were queen less, but last week I spotted her, and was able to mark her. That hive is really sucking up the syrup, but not a very big colony. Hoping next year will be better.
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I'm on the east coast. This year has left a bad taste in my mouth. Due to covid I decided to split everything using full deep splits. Mating was poor for me usually run 90% return this year was 70%. This spring was way too cold way too long. Then way too dry for way too long. My garden was crap, half of it didn't even germinate. Glad I worked to the strong side bees built up slowly. Comb drawing has been terrible. Allot of hives are finally picking up not sure if its due to re-queening, adding apivar, or dumping gallons of syrup down them. I gave every thing a half patty of sub to see if they would take it. They all consumed it within 3 days so guess gotta make more of that. With that said wasn't a record breaking year for me.
It has been a odd year for me. I had 2 overwintered hives this spring, one did well (filled 3 supers). The other overwintered hive did not do much all summer, and I am just starting to get them going after I caught them trying to swarm. Some of this may be inexperience, some genetics, and some a smaller hive that was being finicky.
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For us it has been one of best years in the past decade but we have had adequate rain and significant vegetation. We re about 2-2 weeks early and nowat the beginningof August things are slowing and a lot of uncapped supers. Sorry for your bad year but this seems to be part of beekeeping we can not control.
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Very interesting comment about hive internal temepratures and drone laying queens. Can you provide the references? I have had for a 10 hive apiary a large number of 1st year drone laying queens too but usually in the spring.
I am in New England and have been running a few crude thermal experiments along with a good flow for the second year in a row. It is amazing how insulated hives remain stable day and night int he summer with full supers being a temperature buffer also. i went a few days in July without insulation to paint the insulation - I was stunned by the sunny day time and night time temperature swings - saw 113F in the super area, queens I suspect would stay in the more regulated brood area (93-95F). I aiming at an upgraded test starting in the Fall - more sensors.
I am in New England and have been running a few crude thermal experiments along with a good flow for the second year in a row. It is amazing how insulated hives remain stable day and night int he summer with full supers being a temperature buffer also. i went a few days in July without insulation to paint the insulation - I was stunned by the sunny day time and night time temperature swings - saw 113F in the super area, queens I suspect would stay in the more regulated brood area (93-95F). I aiming at an upgraded test starting in the Fall - more sensors.
I wouldn't say hard, but a little disappointing. Spring too wet and summer too dry. Clover was a bust. It was abundant but didn't produce nectar. Still have goldenrod to go, but would guess 75 percent of average. But after reading this, I am not complaining. J
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Mine has been bad as well. Build up in April on canola, then moved strong colonies into the hills for wildflower honey. Cold and wet the entire month of May, and very little clover at most yards for June.
I had a few weak colonies at some clover yards that I was feeding first 2 weeks of May that somehow made some honey in the 10-15 days that it warmed up before the clover burned up. We went from highs of 70 and rain to highs of 95+ and no rain in sight.
Spring honey crop came in right at 10 lbs/hive. At least I didn't have to feed...
I had a few weak colonies at some clover yards that I was feeding first 2 weeks of May that somehow made some honey in the 10-15 days that it warmed up before the clover burned up. We went from highs of 70 and rain to highs of 95+ and no rain in sight.
Spring honey crop came in right at 10 lbs/hive. At least I didn't have to feed...
For those intersted in the research papers:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4749221/
https://link.springer.com/article/1...temperature and lower temperature variability.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/627729v3.full
https://www.beeculture.com/catch-the-buzz-queen-loss-causes-being-identified/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4749221/
https://link.springer.com/article/1...temperature and lower temperature variability.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/627729v3.full
https://www.beeculture.com/catch-the-buzz-queen-loss-causes-being-identified/
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That is tough, why are you and others having such issues?
I've had a banner year in 2020, over double the honey harvested in any of my previous 10 years of beekeeping. We've been pretty warm all summer (mid 80s to 90s) but extremely dry. Doesn't seem to be a good combo for foraging and I can't explain it.
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I’m in CA as well and there has been no flow. Last year at this time I was harvesting, this year I’m feeding. I’m a hobbyist with 5 hives.
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