By AMANDA PIRANI
Granite State News Collaboration
Lee Alexander has kept bees most of his life, learning from his grandfather and great uncle. He likes to say that he is not an expert in beekeeping, but in 50 years he has seen a thing or two.
And this year has really thrown him off track.
“I have never experienced a season like this,” he said.
Alexander says that spring and summer temperatures came earlier this year. With them came the wildflowers, weeks earlier than expected. This caused his bees to collect a lot of nectar and pollen, causing unexpected problems in the hive.
Alexander’s bees quickly produced more honey than they could store in the upper chambers of the hive, where it belonged. Instead, they began storing it in the brood chambers, which are intended for reproduction.
“They were spreading honey everywhere they could,” he said. “And the queen said, ‘Hey, what’s going on here? I have no place to lay eggs.'”
Worker bees only live for a few weeks to a month, and a queen must lay thousands of eggs a day to replace them. Without room to do so, Alexander’s hives are shrinking, threatening their survival as fall approaches.
Alexander said beekeepers can take steps to deal with large amounts of honey. He recently spent a day clearing out the brood chambers of his hives to give the queen room to lay her eggs. In some hives, the situation has improved. But it’s not easy to deal with.
“I’m a reasonably experienced, mostly capable and reasonably good-looking beekeeper,” he said. “But… I couldn’t keep up.”
Due to a lack of space, two of his beehives swarmed. In nature, this is a natural biological process that usually takes place in spring: half of the bees leave their hive to start a new colony somewhere else.
This is worrying for a beekeeper. Summer is the season with the highest activity in a hive and swarming can result in the hive no longer having a queen that can lay eggs.
Olivia Saunders, a subject specialist at the University of New Hampshire, said Alexander is not the only one facing these challenges.
“Some of the more experienced beekeepers … when they started out, it was just a matter of getting a hive, checking it at the end of the year, harvesting the honey and repeating the whole thing the next year,” she said. “Today, as a beekeeper, you need a lot more management and skill to read the hive and understand what’s going on.”
Saunders said the number of stressors a hive faces each year has increased due to climate change. She works through UNH Extension to support beekeepers and said extreme weather is a big challenge.
High heat and humidity can be uncomfortable for a hive and can be a reason for swarming to occur, as was the case with Alexander.
Winter can also cause problems. Mild winter temperatures can cause bees to leave their hives too early and freeze to death during a cold spell.
Extreme rainfall can cause too much moisture in the hive, preventing the bees from drying out and putting them at risk of hypothermia. Heavy rainfall or flooding can also wash away pollen, leaving the bees without enough food.
That’s exactly what happened to Concord beekeeper Jim Watt a few years ago.
“In this situation, you have to keep an eye on your hive,” he said. “You have to give them pollen replacement.”
Saunders says bee pests are another problem exacerbated by climate change. Varroa mites are a major cause of colony loss, and research suggests the situation is being made worse by changing seasonal patterns.
The mites are to bees what a giant tick might be to a human. They weaken the bees and make them more susceptible to disease and death. A hive weakened by Varroa is unlikely to survive the winter months.
“Basically, it’s like having a Frisbee-sized mite on your back. That’s how big they are in proportion,” Saunders said.
Alexander says that while these challenges can seem daunting, he has no plans to give up beekeeping anytime soon. Instead, he is working with his local beekeeping association to find ways to adapt.
To cope with rainy winters, he has started using a hive blanket: a flat box filled with wood shavings that draws moisture out of the hive and provides insulation. He will find new queens for his populated hives as needed and do his best to help them grow before fall.
“I think seeing a healthy hive where everything is going the way it’s supposed to … it’s like raising children,” Alexander said. “You hope for the best, but you do what you need to do.”
These articles are shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.
