2020 - is the consensus that its a bad year for beeks ?

[citrus]

Been a poor yield year for my bees and reading on the threads it seems the same for a few others (but not exclusively)

guess the last 3 years I've been spoilt year on year so wasnt really mentally prepared it !

just interested in the reasons why this year has been so bad ?

(from sw london - with access to lavender fields at carshalton and banstead common and lots of urban gardens with covid lockdown gardeners doing their best !)

 

[enrico]

It's been a great year here. Big harvest. Nice weather with the occasional heavy rain! No problem.better than the droughts of the last three years!
E

 

[drex]

Drought continues here. The colonies are good strong and healthy, but the crop is poor. The former is luckily my priority.

 

[Curly green finger's]

My best spring crop ever..
I can't comment on the summer as its not over yet

Sent from my YAL-L21 using Tapatalk

 

[Niv]

Unsurprisingly, I have found the same as Enrico. Better than last year for sure for me.

 

[thorn]

It started well around Leeds, but then a drought followed by near-continuous rain put paid to any hopes of a good crop.
It's particularly annoying as the false dawn persuaded us to buy a twelve-frame extractor.

 

[Murox]

Its often 'hit' or 'miss' up here, I recall being cautioned when I moved here that "you don't always get a honey harvest.............depends on the weather......" Well I actually had some spring honey this year; summer not so good although there is a little....

 

[Bear]

This year is worse than last and last year was a very bad year. Honey nearly ready for extraction, bang week of rain, bees eat the honey coz they can’t get out! Honey production back a couple of weeks. Again fine weather, stores building up, bad weather again, honey production back a couple of weeks. Waste of time. Spring too dry short of nectar now summer too wet.

 

[tonyofarr]

It has not been a great year for us, after the dry sunny weather earlier in the year we have had a lot of wet and windy weather during the main flow. There are a lot of unfinished supers on the hives and I have been taking off empty ones and putting others above the crown boards so that the honey is taken down.

The biggest problem has been getting queens mated. I have lost loads of virgin queens on mating flights and queen introduction has not been easy either. After losing some queens using direct introduction I have gone back to the newspaper method, but even that has not been 100% successful and I have had queens killed and queen cells drawn.

 

[Apiarisnt]

A game of two halves

Around here it seems to have been a game of two halves. Those within flying distance of OSR (which my bees are not) had a good spring honey harvest. Since then no one I know round here has seen much nectar coming in and several have already finished extracting and are now feeding and treating.

So for me, I am looking at signifcantly less honey from the girls than last year.

 

[Tim.S]

On the Bognor Riviera we have had a very dry year so the flow has been sporadic to say the least, but having gone from 13 colonies at the beginning of the year and one apiary to 40 colonies and 3 apiaries I consider I have had a brilliant year. And around 300 pounds of honey overall was just icing on the cake.

 

[GuyNir]

We had good spring here, some supers filled nicely. Then autumn came.
We didn’t go above 17c since May, with very few sunny days.

 

[SDM]

Grim in this part of N.wales. too dry in spring then constant rain , gales and cold pretty much since Hawthorne peaked. First time I've ever seen apiaries with not a single frame of honey to show.

 

[madasafish]

Double average winter rainfall made early Spring build up very slow.
Then a lovely dry spell resulted in lots of spring honey - which I extracted - about 20% up on last year.

Then early June on has seen rain, little sun and weeks of dully damp days - bees sitting in hives eating honey.

Overall 30% down on 2019 honey, queen mating has been "challenging" and hives are now largely without honey. All nucs being fed..

The greenhouse tomatoes are a month later than 2019 ,ditto runner beans.

Been a great year for slugs and snails..
Hardly any wasps..

 

[pargyle]

Good season down here on the Costa del Fareham and still going on, good crops on all hives ...no sign of them slowing up at all .. no swarms... near perfect year !

 

[Stiffy]

Although supers have yet to be harvested, we seem to have had a very good year in the glorious SW with most hives on 3 supers, some on five and a monster on seven!!!
We normally take a crop in spring , but with the markets closed we left them on but plan removing all starting in the next fortnight.
When the SBI checked my hives in early July he said that most he had seen have had a poor year, including himself.
S

 

[Erichalfbee]

Not so good here.
Excellent start in spring with some dandelion honey off. Colonies built up and some had to be split.
Then came two months of rain with just the odd sunny spell. Bramble and clover were early. Bramble rained off, not warm enough for clover.
Bad queen mating weather and two laying workers as a result.
Rosebay is yielding something but nearly gone. HB aplenty but that’s has not given much in the past.
A bad year for me.

 

[B+.]

Been a poor yield year for my bees and reading on the threads it seems the same for a few others (but not exclusively)

guess the last 3 years I've been spoilt year on year so wasnt really mentally prepared it !

just interested in the reasons why this year has been so bad ?

(from sw london - with access to lavender fields at carshalton and banstead common and lots of urban gardens with covid lockdown gardeners doing their best !)

I think the honey yield is lower here this year but it depends how you look at things. I've received (and requeened) a couple of swarms while not seeing any signs of swarming in my own stock. I've replaced some winter-loss incurred during storms Ciara & Dennis so I'll be going into winter with about the number of colonies I'd planned for. The only thing I'm really disappointed in is that I didn't get to do as much II as I'd hoped to do. "Real life" got in the way for me as I'm sure it did for everyone. Even so, I've some very good stock to test next year which I am looking forward to. All-in-all, I'm content with 2020.

 

[Mint Bee]

About 20% down in the spring harvest. Not a lot of OSR around this year but OSR flowering coincided with earlier flows from other sources, with the early hot weather. Summer a bit patchy, but found unexpected field beans next to 2 apiaries, and these have piled nectar in to fill 4 – 5 supers each, plus took some bees and brood frames out to make nucs. Bees still bring in nectar, but flow has slowed considerably and some starting to back fill.
Will probably harvest in a fortnight or so, best guess at this time, probably 25% up on last year and have increased number of hives / over wintering nucs. Working from home and avoiding 2 hr commute each day has helped! I believe I've only lost 2 swarms this year and picked up 6, plus I've managed to raise some queens.

 

[For want of a better word]

It has not been a great year for us, after the dry sunny weather earlier in the year we have had a lot of wet and windy weather during the main flow. There are a lot of unfinished supers on the hives and I have been taking off empty ones and putting others above the crown boards so that the honey is taken down.

The biggest problem has been getting queens mated. I have lost loads of virgin queens on mating flights and queen introduction has not been easy either. After losing some queens using direct introduction I have gone back to the newspaper method, but even that has not been 100% successful and I have had queens killed and queen cells drawn.

Of 14 fullyloaded swibine/apidea not a single queen mated... plenty of swallows it seems at that site!
Had far much better joy with the double BS boxes... more bees but at a different mating location.

Not a super year for honey... but must say my native near native bee stocks have doubly out performed the Italians.... who seem to have eaten the little they did bring in!!
Obviously 10,000 years of adaptation to our Cornish climate shines through!

It has been nice and quiet on the roads.... what's the chances of a second lockdown during harvest?

Chons da