By Cheryl Jahn

Cold weather tough for bees

Apr 21, 2022 | 3:59 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Every year at this time, Barry Clark sets up in the parking lot of Princess Auto handing out tubes of bees. Each one contains about 6000 bees. These ones come from New Zealand, where their summer is over. But, like everything, the cooler weather is giving the bees in this region a challenge. Pussy willows are normally out at this time, a bee’s first source of pollen. Dandelions are typically right behind, the first source of nectar for the bees.

“At my place, we don’t have pussy willows blooming yet,” muses Clark. “And that’s the first pollen that they can collect. There are microclimates all around Prince George but at my place, it’s still winter. The willows haven’t even started opening their buds yet.”

This is a critical time of year for beekeepers. The winter bees are tasked with a very special job at this time of year but their numbers are starting to dwindle.

“The cluster of bees in the hive are dying off, they’re shrinking and this cold weather makes it next to impossible for them to keep it hot enough in that colony for them to raise young. They have to heat the centre of that colony up to 34.5 degrees and it feels like minus five right now. I’m sure it’s not but it’s cold.”

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It takes a lot of energy and the cluster is too small, they can’t manage to generate enough heat. A hive needs at least two broods to build the colony up, meaning the queen needs to lay eggs and they need to be raised into adult bees, which takes 21 days. And while the temperature is expected to warm this week, it’s the fluctuation in temperatures that’s hard.

“Right now is so critical and the weather is so hard on them. And this is a particularly cold spring. But lots of times in the spring, we’ll get fifteen above in the day, but at night, it’ll down to five below and those big swings are hard on them, too.”

But here’s to hoping Mother Nature will smarten quickly enough to ensure our bee populations are healthy heading into the summer.