Rain, rain, rain, rain...

[CeeGeeBee]

We have had a really wet spring/early summer, with only a handful of sunny days. The temps have been low as well, in the 40s at night, and barely creeping up to the 70s on the few sunny days we have had. Is this going to have a negative impact on my bees? They seem to be doing OK now, but what could be the long term impact if this weather continues (it is supposed to be like this all summer).

[Hemlock]

Cant say for sure. 
All i know is last time we had a very wet & cool Summer the honey crop was almost non-existent.  However, we had just come out from a harsh winter too.  The bees did OK over the summer though, just no surplus honey. 

If the bees have brooded up well enough and have a good population they should be able to get what nectar is available.  I'd plan to put supers on for your flow still.  Monitor them to see what happens.  Might be it's a good year.  :idunno:

[T Beek]

Looks like summer is finally on its way after today, in North Wisconsin.  We've gotten more rain over the last two years than we've seen in the previous ten (our drought has officially ended).  This might be a good year to just focus on growing bees and bringing them into Winter as strong as possible, that is, unless we get a boomer of a flow (once it drys up).

As far as I know there's only one network still calling what's happening with weather around the world "Global Warming" (mostly as a means to refute) but the vast majority of scientists have been calling it "Climate Change" for at least a decade, a more apt description.

thomas

[sterling]

Looks like summer is finally on its way after today, in North Wisconsin.  We've gotten more rain over the last two years than we've seen in the previous ten (our drought has officially ended).  This might be a good year to just focus on growing bees and bringing them into Winter as strong as possible, that is, unless we get a boomer of a flow (once it drys up).

As far as I know there's only one network still calling what's happening with weather around the world "Global Warming" (mostly as a means to refute) but the vast majority of scientists have been calling it "Climate Change" for at least a decade, a more apt description.

thomas

The climate has been changing since the begining of time. :roll:

[BeeMaster2]

We have had a really wet spring/early summer, with only a handful of sunny days. The temps have been low as well, in the 40s at night, and barely creeping up to the 70s on the few sunny days we have had. Is this going to have a negative impact on my bees? They seem to be doing OK now, but what could be the long term impact if this weather continues (it is supposed to be like this all summer).

Yesterday morning I would have been begging for some of that rain. We have been in a severe drout since mid winter. He are constantly covered in heavy smoke from all of the fires all around us here in Jacksonville. I did get a lot of rain at the farm in Baker county last night but we didn,t get a drop here in town. It is supposed to rain like cats and dogs this afternoon. Last year we had so much rain at the farm that it washed out all of the nectar from the gall berry flowers and the bees were starving. Another old time beekeeper, who puts his bees in the forest next to my farm, and pulled the bees out of there to keep from having to feed them.

[schawee]

we got 2" of rain yesterday  :piano:first measured rain in 3 months .           ....schawee

[T Beek]

Looks like summer is finally on its way after today, in North Wisconsin.  We've gotten more rain over the last two years than we've seen in the previous ten (our drought has officially ended).  This might be a good year to just focus on growing bees and bringing them into Winter as strong as possible, that is, unless we get a boomer of a flow (once it drys up).

As far as I know there's only one network still calling what's happening with weather around the world "Global Warming" (mostly as a means to refute) but the vast majority of scientists have been calling it "Climate Change" for at least a decade, a more apt description.

thomas

The climate has been changing since the begining of time. :roll:

Not so much over the last 500 years or so.

thomas

[CeeGeeBee]

We seem to have 10 year wet/dry cycles here. We came out of a drought two years ago, and now we are experiencing lots of rain and flooding. Hopefully we will get some more sunshine later this summer. I wish I could send some rain down to the south! It seems you guys, specially in the SW, might need some of this.

[T Beek]

A lot of the flooding in your area is from the mountain run off due to the 'fast' warm up that occurred north of the border.  We finally had day w/out rain yesterday.  Today we have another.  Hoo-Ray!!!

thomas

[CeeGeeBee]

A lot of the flooding in your area is from the mountain run off due to the 'fast' warm up that occurred north of the border.  We finally had day w/out rain yesterday.  Today we have another.  Hoo-Ray!!!

thomas

Actually, the run-off has not hit us yet, so we have more (flooding) to come. I think we have had only a handfull of days when it has not rained. We also had a LOT of snow this winter (we had 7 foot snow drifts around our place), the ground never got a chance to freeze last fall, so instead of having the snow melt run off the surface into creeks and rivers this early spring, it all went into the ground. It is so saturated right now, the ground is like a sponge. Because of this, even if people can keep the water away from their house with sandbags, the water is actually coming into their houses through the ground! The last blizzard we had was May 3rd, so we are still experiencing spring conditions.