Texas honey production below average due to summer heat, drought

EAST, Texas (KLTV) – The Texas summer warmth is now behind us, however the aftereffects are starting to present in our agriculture, like honey production.

Experts say honey production is below average this season due to {the summertime} drought.

Owner and operator of Sugar Creek Honey in Flint, Jim Biles says he extracts honey in May which usually carries his production over till subsequent spring. But this yr, he’s out of honey presently.

“Two reasons I’m out is one, my production was way down this year. And the second is that early on, the people that regularly go to local beekeepers in order to get local honey knew that production was down almost immediately.” stated Biles.

And in accordance to the Texas A&M Agrilife Extension Service, the reason for this low production being down about 50 % is as a result of temperatures rose earlier within the yr than common, inflicting a scarcity of moisture.

“Bees will stop foraging, or they at least slow down and reduce their foraging when it gets to over hundred degrees. So throughout most of the state, we were above hundred degrees a lot of the time. So there were less available resources, but also less bees out foraging.” stated Texas A&M Agrilife Extension Service Entomologist, Molly Keck.

This is the second yr the place production was sub-average with 2021 impacted by the winter storm. But Keck foresees extra rain for beekeepers to bounce again as we transfer into the 2022 winter season.

Keck provides, “And that’s really good news at this time of year, especially because it gives those bees that extra bit of food and nutrition to store and harvest to make it through the winter. And the more bees that make it through the winter and out in the spring means there’s more workers and foragers able to go gather nectar.”

A couple of different elements to the low production embrace extra housing developments that lessened the surroundings for bees to forage.

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