All
We've seen more bumblebees this spring than usual, plus some very early
honey bee swarms. We had a very mild winter in Montana, and an early spring.
My quess is that absence of severe cold for any protracted period helped.
My wife's flowers that perennial flowers ALL survived, which is
surprising in our zone, and we had our first swarm call last week.
I have seen more spring honey bees in areas where I'm not aware of
beekeepers, but then again, we've seen a big increase in the number of small
scale beekeepers, so the question is whether ferals are coming back OR more
beekeepers.
Western Bees in Polson, who provides all of the wooden hive equipment
sold by Dadant, and who also sells directly to beekeepers, large and small,
reports a big upswing in their business.
40 years ago, Western Bee had three work shift per day, worked every day
except Thanksgiving and Christmas, as I remember. At that time, number of
bee colonies in US was estimated at 11M. Last decade, estimates of US bees
dropped to about 2.5M. Western Bee dropped to one 40 hr shift per week and
started building wooden toys, selling wood pellets. As of this spring,
Western Bees is again running two shifts per day, and for the first time
that I can remember, is backordered on equipment - expect 1-3 week delay.
Now, part of their loss of business could well be the entry into the bee
equipment business by firms like Mann Lake, but that doesn't explain it
all. My guess, the good news from CCD and the media hype, big increase in
NUMBER of beekeepers. I tell reporters, the big story is not the dwindling
supply of colonies in the US, its been the even more drastic loss of
beekeepers. That apparently has changed.
Jerry
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