I found the maps on what weather was doing in my area interesting. The maps quantify what I thought was happening with weather. Particularly the increase in rain which also tends to bring lower temperatures during the rain.
I think the wetter weather is impacting my bees. The last two years for the first time ever I got so little golden rod it was not worth harvesting. GR blooms based on day length. Degree days make no difference. So first smell of nectar has not changed in 50 years. It is the first warm sunny day after August 25. My observation is GR yields nectar when we have had a dry July and August and Sept temps above 75 with sun shine. Last year the temps were too low during the whole flow, plus we had a wet July and August. I had maybe eight hours where nectar flow was really good and the rest so cool all they brought in was smell. This year temps were just fine in September but July and August was rain after rain. My gravel driveway never got dry enough to stop the weeds from growing in it.
Back in the 1970s it was common to have a hive make 75 or 100 pounds of GR. In fact some commercial guys used to migrate into this area in August just to get the GR flow. That ended 30 years ago. I have not had a single hive do 75 pounds in the last 20 years. This year if I combined a frame from here and a frame from there I could have gotten at most maybe 50 pounds off ten hives. My bees have more acres of GR to work today than they had back when GR was good. For the record Ohio has a bunch of GR species. Some bloom as early as July 1. None of those early bloomers give a drop of nectar regardless of weather. I think there are only two species that yield nectar. Based on my experience and those weather maps I think GR needs hot during the flow and dry both during and before the flow to give a decent yield. So perhaps climate change will impact us in the eastern US more then we think?
Dick
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