This year’s summer weather presented the bees many sunny and honeyfull days. Especially June was a great month for the bees as at higher altitudes melting snow from winter kept everything wet and prosperously in bloom. The typically cold days often called the “sheeps cold snap” in June were completely missing this year providing the bees an additional harvesting week. Only at the beginning of the last third of July the heat and the dry conditions took over and stopped the honey flow abruptly.
However, beekeepers can look back at a successful bee year. Besides full honey pots the abnormal heat wave all over Europe comes along with some severe consequences for nature and our planet. Hopefully the society takes such a wake up call seriously and gives it a go to switch gears and act responsibly – and buying an air conditioner does not fall into the category of acting responsibly. Beekeepers should take their stand as nature’s attorneys.
Today’s colder temperatures provided some relief and presented the first chance to start with the varroa control measures. We will now prepare the bee hives for winter and with that laying the foundation for another successful bee year 2019.