Bees stressed out by spring flower glut
A record-breaking warm and sunny spring means that Germany is enjoying a veritable explosion of blooms this April, but the country’s bee colonies are struggling to keep up, daily Bild reported on Friday.
Germany has some 700,000 bee colonies – each with up to 50,000 buzzing members – but the “bloom explosion” means they’re working overtime, the paper said.
“The winter was very long, and now nature is blooming particularly intensely, meanwhile the bees need to nurture their new broods,” Professor Kaspar Bienefeld, a bee expert at the institute for apiculture in Hohen Neudorf, told the paper. “That means extreme pressure and a challenge.”
While the bees are tending their offspring, they're losing precious time, Bild said, explaining that the warm temperatures force plants to bloom all at once, shortening the time bees have for pollination.
The stressed out bees may cause problems for crops this year. According to the German beekeeping association, some 85 percent of agricultural revenues depend on bee pollination.
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Germany has some 700,000 bee colonies – each with up to 50,000 buzzing members – but the “bloom explosion” means they’re working overtime, the paper said.
“The winter was very long, and now nature is blooming particularly intensely, meanwhile the bees need to nurture their new broods,” Professor Kaspar Bienefeld, a bee expert at the institute for apiculture in Hohen Neudorf, told the paper. “That means extreme pressure and a challenge.”
While the bees are tending their offspring, they're losing precious time, Bild said, explaining that the warm temperatures force plants to bloom all at once, shortening the time bees have for pollination.
The stressed out bees may cause problems for crops this year. According to the German beekeeping association, some 85 percent of agricultural revenues depend on bee pollination.
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