an increase in honey bee colony density and a decrease
in forage for the pollinator. Zac Browning of Browning
Honey Co. warns that North Dakota is the “Last Best
Place for Bees.”
The Bee Informed Partnership (BIP) Midwest Technical
Transfer Team based at the University of Minnesota
services beekeepers throughout the Dakotas, traveling
long distances to cover both territories. In addition, the
Texas Technical Transfer Team also follows their more
southern beekeepers up to South and North Dakota
during their migration in search of honey producing
pastures. The two teams are kept busy in August and
September making the sampling rounds assessing
colonies during and after honey production.
The honey producing season in the Dakotas starts in June
after colonies come out of winter, most likely made the
trek to California for the almond bloom in February, get
split, treated for varroa mites, fed and left to grow strong
workforces for the nectar flow back in the Dakotas.
Come June, the honey supers go on and bees work
tirelessly from dusk until dawn to collect nectar, store it
and evaporate
it into honey.
Usually during this
period, varroa
mite treatments
are withheld
until the honey
supers come off in August, due to the lack of treatment
options available for use during honey production for
food safety reasons. This leaves the colonies vulnerable
to experience spikes in varroa mite infestations and
the variety of viruses they vector to the honey bee
population in the late summer.
This year, both the Texas and Minnesota BIP
Technical Transfer teams noticed higher varroa mite
levels compared to last year for the same period (see
graphs). Different variables could account for these
numbers. For example, a warm spring and early build
up, low efficacy treatments and colony density in the
region could all partially explain the early spikes in
varroa mite loads.
North Dakota
is the last best
place for bees.
This graph represents the Varroa mite levels for Texas (TX) beekeepers from August 2017 (left) compared to August 2018 (right).
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