Synopsis : Why was the summer 2023 honey crop so poor (at least here in Scotland) after a bumper Spring harvest, and what could or should I have done instead? Where did it all go wrong?
Introduction
Last weekend effectively marked the end of the worst summer season I’ve ever had since starting beekeeping.
At least when measured by honey yield.
Lots of other things went OK and some things went very well, but one of the reasons I keep bees is for honey production and that’s been an abject failure this summer.
I’ve yet to extract – and briefly considered leaving it all for the bees – but am pretty confident that it’s ~25 kg less than 2022.
That’s per hive 🙁 .
That’s a shortfall of over 200 kg from about the same number of production colonies.
I’ve ended up with just half a dozen supers, and not all of them are full.
Hello stranger, where were you in summer ’23?
I’m pretty certain I got more full supers in my very first year when I had just two hives … though this was helped by 30 acres of field beans just over the apiary fence.
Location, location, location 😉 .
So what went wrong?
How did this season differ from last season?
And, before I start, it’s not that 2023 was average and 2022 was freakishly good. Since returning to Scotland in 2015 the spring and summer honey crops have been reasonably consistent … and generally pretty good.
2022 was a little better than average and 2019 was appreciably worse, but all of them produced enough honey to make extracting (and the interminable cleaning up, jarring, labelling etc. afterwards) very worthwhile.
2023 is the outlier.
Why didn’t I leave the honey for the bees? Because I treat with Apivar and I’d prefer not to have to melt out the super frames that were exposed to miticide.
So, comparing this year with 2022 (and some earlier years), where did it all go wrong?