Mother Nature’s fickleness led to wide variations in the prairie honey crop this season.
Depending where in Alberta you were, the production picture was “either very rosy or fairly dismal,” said provincial apiculturist Kenn Tuckey.
Yields ranged from a high of 250 pounds per colony west of Edmonton to a low of 80 lb. per colony on the edge of the Peace area.
Tuckey said the problems were primarily weather related, but didn’t explain why there was such a variance. “In the really poor area, there was no apparent reason for a poor crop,” Tuckey said, adding rain may have been a factor in the Peace area, but flooding was not.
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Average production in Alberta is usually 145-150 lb. per colony. Tuckey anticipates this year’s average will be about 125 lb.
Weather conditions “put a crimp” in Saskatchewan honey production in July, said apiculturist John Gruszka.
Winter losses in Saskatchewan were low this year and early summer saw a rapid buildup of colonies.
“Everyone was expecting a real nice crop, and it sort of fizzled on us in August.”
Gruszka said honey producers had the same problem as farmers: “An inch and a half (of rain) at the right time in July and we could have had a bumper crop.”
Gruszka estimates an average crop for Saskatchewan of 175 lb. per colony.
Bees are finicky about weather, and poor conditions will result in a honey crop a bit below average in Manitoba, said Don Dixon, government apiculturist.
“The spring was cool and wet, which is not good for bees. Bees like it warm and dry.”
The first two weeks of July are the critical honey producing period. During that time the weather was hot and humid and bees don’t like humidity, Dixon said.
“They really didn’t get going till mid-July, which is kind of late for them.”
Dixon expects total production in the province to rise by about 10 percent this year due to an increase in colony numbers, but the production average will be about 140 lb. each, 15 short of the long-term average.
Mites not a big problem
While verroa mites are still slowly spreading across all three prairie provinces, the honey specialists say there has been no large economic effect on production.
Saskatchewan has completed a two-year survey indicating the mites only exist in isolated pockets. In Manitoba they have spread to almost every region. In Alberta one-third to one-half of bee operations have the mites, but not every hive in those areas is infected.
Warning producers of mites moving into their areas has kept the losses low.
