SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- With the autumnal equinox past, most of the honey harvest across Michiana has wrapped up. I spoke to a local beekeeper about how the weather has impacted this year's harvest.
"They're very dependent upon the weather, the bees have an internal clock. They're able to detect when the solstices occur, when we have less time left in the days."
Chad Bartalone has been a beekeeper with Unity Gardens for three years and tells me the honey production season starts to wind down as temperatures get cooler, as bees get ready for the winter.
Frames get beeswax removed from them and put into a honey extractor to get spun. Raw honey is then filtered twice before being bottled.
Of course, not all the frames get taken out of the hive, the bees still need some sustenance for the winter.
"Of the reasons why hives fail over the winter, the biggest reason is probably they don't have enough food, and that is oftentimes because the beekeeper was harvesting too much."
If a hive does not last through the winter, beekeepers will have to wait for swarm season in the spring to restock.
"Because we have a cycle of bees that are in this area in the springtime, we'll catch swarms of bees that come from here. That allows for just a stronger hive colony in our area, or a stronger hive colony here at Unity Gardens."
Michiana’s weather may not have had as big of an impact on the honey harvest as the biodiversity around the hive.
"Being in the city, hives in the city tend to do better. They tend to produce more because everyone has a garden. In the country, there's more monocrops. The bees are more dependent on single pollinators."
Helping honeybees in your area can be as easy as planting native flowers in the spring, so bees can pick up pollen from a variety of flowers. Some honey harvests in more rural areas could be impacted by low biodiversity, causing a drop in yield for some hives.