Happy Earth Day! Take a moment to show some love for Mother Earth today, even if it’s only a small gesture like hugging a tree. If you’d like to do something more, take a look at the ‘help the bees‘ section of the website for some inspiration! Today on the Actual Honey blog, we’re going to honour Earth Day by exploring a bee’s perspective on the climate crisis.
The very first Actual Honey post I wrote, ‘What is a bee?‘, explained the phenomenal importance of all kinds of bee to the planet and people. Bees and other pollinators contribute to the survival of almost all the world’s plants and crops. We need our bees!
Modern life is not kind to insects. Because of habitat loss and climate change, bees are facing devastating challenges. Some species are endangered, including the adorable bumblebee, while some are already extinct. Honey bees have the advantage of being cared for by beekeepers, but that certainly doesn’t mean life is easy for them. The effects of the climate crisis take their toll on honey bees too.
Think back to the 2022 heatwave. What were you doing that summer? Matt had his MSc graduation ceremony and was dressed in a full suit, black robes and mortarboard during a time when the MET Office was issuing severe health warnings for temperatures of 38-39°C! How did he survive? We’ll never know.
Bees are resilient and adaptable, but there are limits to what they can tolerate! They suffered during that scorching summer.
There is a perfect temperature range for raising brood: 33-36°C. If it’s too cold, the bees will vibrate their wing muscles to generate heat. If it’s too hot, the bees will flap their wings to ventilate the hive. The cooling process is dependent on access to water, which foragers will bring home and the bees will actively evaporate to bring down the temperature. Keeping the baby bees from getting too hot saves their lives. If they overheat, they will die. During the heatwave, honey bees must have been exhausted trying to keep their enclosed hives at a livable temperature.
Many colonies were likely to have been facing another calamity as the temperatures soared: collapsing comb! When it gets too hot, the comb softens and collapses under the weight of the stored honey. On top of the mess and ruined reserves, it can also crush bees. It could kill the queen!
If the sweltering weather results in the queen’s death, that means the brood has probably died as well. A colony without a queen is in serious trouble and, without brood, the bees cannot raise a new queen. It’s only a matter of time before this family dies out.
If you want to help the bees to avoid such a bleak fate, a simple but effective action you can take is to add a bee water station to your garden. If you’re a beekeeper, put one in your apiary as well. When temperatures rise, so do water droplets, so the ponds and streams the bees usually turn to may have dried up. Providing a water station that you keep topped up with cool, clean water may just save a colony!
Thanks to climate chaos, unpredictable, rapidly changing weather is becoming almost expected. This can cause another potentially fatal challenge for honey bees.
In February, Matt’s colonies showed signs that the queens had started laying eggs to build up their populations. In March, when the sun came out, Matt was able to perform his first inspection and confirm that the queens were laying. Bees becoming active again after the winter is a happy occasion, but only if they have the resources to handle it. Confusing, inconsistent weather can make spring starvation all the more likely. You can read the details here.
Beekeepers, be there for your bees to help them make it through the struggles of the climate crisis.