Despite the early thriving of bees, many beekeepers are lamenting mediocre yields of honey this season.

“Bees built up well in spring because of the warm temperatures,” explains Tim Bartel, the President of Bartel Honey Farms in Kleefeld, but he adds the unusually hot and dry summer made the canola plants flower more quickly than normal, giving honeybees less opportunity to make use of the nectar.

Bartel indicates this summer’s honey production was notably down even from last year because conditions were equally dry and even hotter. “If next year was cooler and had a little bit more rain that would help,” says Bartel, “but it’s hard to hope for something you really don’t have a handle on.”

Sometimes that is just the way things go concludes Bartel: “The bees look good but the honey didn’t.”