>Honey harvest plummets as bees suffer in wet and windy weather

It has certainly not been a good year over here.  Crops are down (ours is 60% of last year's bumper harvest and we do not plan any price increase), but perhaps of more concern is the number of queens that either failed to mate, or were only partially mated - next spring may show high losses.

But should we not expect this, given the position of the UK and its very variable weather?  Sensible commercial beekeepers plan for this by holding sufficient stock to iron out the peaks and troughs - one bee farmer that I know holds 3 years stock.

Despite the headlines, we should remember that this is nothing new; our most famous commercial beekeeper, R.O.B. Manley, had to say about the weather in his classic book ‘Honey Farming’ written in 1944.
 ‘…it may be said that in our country the weather in summer-time is as a general rule about as bad as it can well be, considered from the point of view of the beekeeper.’
‘Usually we have about three weeks of good weather between 1 May and 31 August.  The rest of the time weather is chilly, cloudy, windy, wet, foggy, or even downright cold, but interspersed with short intervals of sunny days.’
‘Early flows are not very desirable, as they are almost always followed by long spells of dearth in which what has been stored is eaten up by the bees.’
‘There was no honey-flow worth the name from 20 May 1922 to 1 July 1923, an interval of thirteen months…’
‘1927 was the most completely ruinous season I ever had.  The summer consisted of one fine day, 16th June.  The rest was deluge and swamp.’
‘1930 and 1931 were both terrible seasons when no worthwhile crop could be produced by any means.’
‘1936 turned out to be one of those cold sunless summers that we know so well.  There was almost no honey…’

Best wishes

Peter 
52°14'44.44"N, 1°50'35"W

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