Western North Carolina's Drought

Despite last weeks nominal rainfall, Western North Carolina was until recently, in a moderate to severe drought and heat wave. Most municipalities and counties require water within 30 feet of hive boxes to deter bees from visiting drinking fountains or backyard pools. We obviate the need for water by strategically placing “bee ponds” and fountains within striking distance of our hives. Extreme heat is a different matter. Heat affects the bees in any number of ways. The brood will go into distress when the brood temperature exceeds 96°. Beeswax comb will soften and then collapse above 104°. To better understand the high temperatures we are enduring in WNC, our energy co-op uses “cooling degree” days with a threshold of 72°. Last year, from May though June, we had 7 cooling degree days. This year, we’ve had 49 days in the same period. 

Honey Bees have evolved to deal with the heat. A strong bee colony can maintain a hive temperature of 95° to 97° even when the outside ambient temperature is 140°. They begin to fan the entrance and ventilate the hive when the inside temp’s become greater than 97°. If fanning fails to reduce the hive temperature, nurse bees will communicate with foraging bees to seek out water. They use evaporation by placing water on the inside surface of the hive and brood. Think: swamp cooler. Failing all this, the word (buzz?) goes out and bees will start collectively going outside, this is called bearding.

The lack of rain and continuous heat affected the bees in another consequential way; it resulted in an abysmal wildflower harvest. Plants need water to make nectar. It takes 110lbs of nectar to produce 44lbs of honey. 44lbs of honey is needed for a wintering hive (@ 2.2 pounds of honey per week) to keep the cluster warm. We allow each of our hives to keep their 50lbs of honey for the coming winter. This limited our wildflower inventory.

It’s not all doom and gloom. The lack of rain gave the hive girls unfettered access to sourwood trees. They had three weeks of daily, uninterrupted flight time into the stands of the deep rooted, water absorbing sourwood tree. The upshot being a very good nectar flow. We have begun pulling sourwood honey supers off the hives and have it available on our site. 

The photo taken at 5:30 AM shows bearding bees. Red light was used because bees can’t see red.