Summer drought causes trouble for local bees
Lack of rain caused honey production to slow down significantly, and affect the bees’ bodies.
MIDLAND, Texas (KOSA) -Yellow Rose Farms and Apiary has been around for the last 2 years and their honey is raw, unfiltered, unpasteurized, and never blended. This means that they never heat or blend it with any other sources of honey. All of the health benefits come straight out of their hives, and directly into your jar of honey.
However, this summer wasn’t such an easy one for the apiary as the lack of rain caused honey production to slow down significantly, and affected the bees’ bodies.
“Well, it can be detrimental to the beehives as well as the environment. So, with the lack of rain, there was hardly anything blooming in the fields so that’s a lack of pollen and nectar so the bees didn’t have anything to eat this summer. So, they became very weak and vulnerable to other insects and pesticides” said Katie Briscoe, Owner of Yellow Rose Farms and Apiary.
Now you may think pollen is a bad thing because when pollen is in the air, we get allergies. But it’s very important to not just bees but also humans.
“I would ask if you like to eat, if you like to eat then pollination is important to you. Because that’s where we get our food crops, that’s where we get our fruits and our vegetables and things like that. It’s through pollination services” said Michael Nickell, Museum Scientist, and Naturalist Sibley Nature Center.
Yellow Rose has Golden Cordovan bees which are extremely gentle and are from the cordovan family, which originates from the Italian bee family.
Even though the bees originated from Italy they are a very popular bee in West Texas.
And that’s why Briscoe decided on the Golden Cordovan bees since they are familiar with the environment especially because their lifespan is only about 4 to 5 weeks.
Now with the summer behind us and fall here and winter not too far away, the bees are getting ready for the colder months
“The bees don’t leave their beehive. So, they’re making honey storage to live off of and they’re sealing the beehive so that the cold air doesn’t get in and freeze them as well” said Briscoe.
Briscoe also says that the big ways you can help are to plant gardens and leave a little spot in your yard unmowed if possible, which gives bees something to eat.
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