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Iowa Honey Producers Association |
The Buzz Newsletter August 2005 |
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Do Bees Produce More Honey In Hot Weather? I don’t think that question has ever been answered completely. Some beekeepers say that in a hot dry year they will get more honey from their bees than when the weather is in the low 80’s and we get plenty of rain. Now this appears to be true especially if you have kept bees for 15 or 20 years. A lot of you will recall in 1988 how much more honey was produced in a hot dry year. I may be wrong on the year, but it was in the late 80’s. Some beekeepers claim that the plants being under a stressful condition due to the heat and drought produced an abundance of nectar to attract the bees for pollination of as many seeds as possible for the survival of the plant in later years. Other beekeepers will claim that the plants only produced the nectar that is available in any given year if the weather would remain stable and steady and not keep changing like it does when we have rains on a weekly basis. Every time it rains the weather changes, by getting cool and wet. This change will cause the plants to stop flowing with nectar and for a day or two the bees seem to barely gather enough nectar to meet their needs in the hive. In 1977 Albert Andrianno told me that up to that time the year he made the most honey was a year when we got little to no rain. He said that the farmers kept waiting on the alfapha to grow high enough to mow for hay and it never got over 8 or 9 inches tall, but it bloomed and bloomed and bloomed. The same thing happened in the 80’s and Andy made 44 or 45 barrels of honey on 200 hives of bees. The very next year we had plenty of rain and the weather was cooler and Andy made 11 barrels of honey on the same number of hives of bee. Now you explain to me why in a hot dry year he made over 4 times the amount of honey to what he made in a normal year. Some years you can smell the sweet nectar that some trees and plants are giving off and if you search the tree or plant you cannot find a honey bee working any of the blooms? I have seen this with bees less than a hundred yards from the nectar source. Are the florets on the flowers two long for the bees to get the nectar or have the bees found another source of nectar farther away that has a higher sugar content? The next year you may not be able to smell the sweet nectar from the tree or plant, but it can be thoroughly covered with honeybees working the blooms. I often wonder what causes the bees to choose one plant one year and not touch it the next year, while some times they will work the same plant year after year after year. I guess these are some of the mysteries that will keep me interested in bees for as long as I live. August is Iowa State Fair month and September is Clay County Fair time for the Iowa Honey Producer Association. The Association has to make all of the money that we need to support the various programs that we support in the eleven days of the State Fair. We always are in need of volunteers, so if you haven’t signed up to work a half day or all day at the fair, You can call either Donna Brahms on her cell phone or if you can’t reach Donna, call Gordon Powell on his cell phone and he will get the message to Donna. Gordon’s cell number is 515-979-3362. I don’t know Donna’s cell number. There is a new Northwest Iowa Beekeepers Association. I understand that they are going to try to provide all of the help to the Clay County Fair this year. If you live in that part of the state and would like to provide help if they need some fill in people, I don’t recall the name of the new secretary/treasurer that is doing the organizing of the helpers; but I am sure that Jim Strachan in Humbolt knows his name. Hope to see a lot of you at the two fairs. May all of your supers be full of honey by now and you have the energy to remove them and process all of that golden delicious honey. Rambling by The Old Man
Greetings Iowa Beekeepers!!! Wow! It is hard to believe how quickly the weather can warm up here in Iowa! This summer has been very exciting, and I am having a great time promoting Iowa honey. Since I wrote last, I was given the opportunity to travel to Marshalltown to speak at the Iowa Teacher’s Academy. It was a great day, and many of the teachers were interested in finding new ways to bring bees and honey into their classrooms. Many requested information about having a beekeeper or me visit their classes this fall. I also was honored by the opportunity to attend the Gladbrook Corn Carnival, and ride in the parade. I would like to say a big “Thank you!” to Don Storjohann of Garwin for setting everything up. I am very excited about the Iowa State Fair, and I hope to have the chance to work with many of you. As always, please don’t hesitate to call me about anything that you have going on, I would love to help out. I can be contacted at (712) 779-0321 or tjurchen@iastate.edu. Until then, |
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