Harsh winter leaves few bees buzzing
- Survey of beekeepers who keep their hives stationary shows nearly half the hives died out over the winter
- Illnesses%2C parasites and even pre-winter weather conditions were contributing factors to the winter die-off
- Beekeepers are saying the higher-than-normal winter die-off will spell higher prices for honey
Contrary to most folks who like an all-green lawn, beekeepers are hoping for dandelions.
That's because the very long, very cold winter we've just had has been particularly hard on beehives. One statewide survey of beekeepers who keep their hives stationary shows nearly half the hives died out over the winter.
A more normal die-off during the long season without pollen would be 10 percent to 30 percent.
And with this spring getting a late start, the bees who made it through the winter are really needing some messy yellow pollen right about now.
"The moment I stop worrying about whether my bees will starve is when the dandelions bloom," said Patrick Freivald of Canadice, Ontario County. The president of the Ontario-Finger Lakes Beekeepers Association said he entered the winter with 32 hives. He has just nine surviving hives.
"Just because I have nine alive now, doesn't mean I'll have nine alive in two weeks, Freivald said.
A number of beekeepers are saying the higher-than-normal winter die-off will spell higher prices for locally produced honey and possibly some shortages.
In many cases, bees starved and then froze to death, sometimes even when their hives still held plenty of honey they could have eaten.
Bees typically stay warm by vibrating in a cluster around the queen. While the worker bees can change position in the pack — taking turns on the warm inside and cold outside, for instance — they need a break in the freezing temps in order to regroup the entire cluster at a different location in the hive closer to honey stores.
"They eat up all the stores that are right near the cluster," explained Jill Stackpole, co-owner of Bloomfield Honey Farm in Ontario County. She said that unless temperatures rise to around 40 degrees, the bees can't even take a potty break.
"Bees won't go to the bathroom in the hive. They have to wait until there's a warm day," Stackpole said, noting she can see evidence of the quick trips bees make to relieve themselves; she sees what looks like mustard on the snow outside the hive. "If they don't get to have a break to do cleansing flights, that can cause problems in the hives."
Only sick bees defecate inside the hives. And if they don't defecate, they can become sick — especially if they're already battling the kinds of chronic health issues that have been facing bees in recent years, said Christina Wahl, an associate professor of biology at Wells College in Aurora, Cayuga County.
"If you have a virus already and you can't go to the bathroom, it's (the virus) just going to keep multiplying in your body until you die," she said.
Extra low temperatures that hung on for days and days this winter made the freezing/starving scenario more common than usual, beekeepers said. In a survey completed by 126 beekeepers from 42 counties in New York, cold was cited as the major reason for winter die-offs this year, followed by starvation.
These early results come from a survey circulated by Pat Bono, owner of Seaway Trail Honey of Webster, who coordinates the New York Bee Wellness program of the Empire State Honey Producers Association. The beekeepers who answered the survey so far reported having a total of 1,276 hives when winter began, but that total had dropped to 662 by April 20.
"If farmers lost that number of cows each year, it'd be a national emergency," Wahl said.
Many beekeepers suspect illnesses, parasites and even pre-winter weather conditions were contributing factors to the winter die-off.
Bono, who keeps 12 hives in Wayne County, has lost all but three of her hives. She was philosophical about the losses, noting the impact can depend on a beekeeper's size and other means of livelihood.
"If someone has two hives, and they lost both of them, it's bad they lost everything," she said. But a small operator can get going again fairly quickly. She's hoping to replenish her hives with wild swarms if it warms up in the next couple of weeks. An empty hive containing a stock of honey and partly formed cells of beeswax can become productive with a new colony in a few weeks, Bono said.
Still, she said, "what's not good is hearing someone had 60 hives and they're down to eight."
Wahl, a fourth generation beekeeper, lost six of her seven hives.
Michael Kopicki of Kopicki Apiary in Webster says he cringes when he thinks about how much he might have lost this season. He went into the winter with 90 hives and thinks he may have lost two-thirds of them. Hives can continue to crash through the spring.
"This was a mini-catastrophe for a lot of people, myself included," Kopicki said. "The winter lasted so long and I guess the parasites can take their toll even more so. Dysentery occurs, there's a lot of disease."
Kopicki and the other beekeepers interviewed for this article say they don't medicate their bees in an effort to make as natural a product as possible.
"This year you pay the price — one of those years you take a loss because of trying to be pure," Kopicki said.
Wahl said even with some major losses reported, the degree to which hives have died out is variable across the state. Some very experienced beekeepers did all the right things, including feeding colonies that appeared to lack sufficient honey, and they still lost bees, she said. Some newcomers did little but managed to have hives survive.
Pamela Davis of Davis Honey in Cayuga, Cayuga County, said the 300 colonies she and her husband keep on the shores of Cayuga Lake didn't suffer larger than usual winter losses, perhaps because of the warming effect of the lake. The Davises sell their honey regularly at the Rochester Public Market.
Despite suffering staggering losses some years ago when they used to transport bees up and down the East Coast for pollination, the Davises rebuilt their colonies and now keep their hives stationary.
"We just keep our nose to the grind and work hard and have faith. This is all we've ever done is bees and the honey," Pamela Davis said. And like Freivald, she's hoping for dandelions to get the bees going on production.
"We need some dandelions," she said. "They carry a tremendous amount of pollen, the nectar, too."
DCARTER@DemocratandChronicle.com