This year's cold, wet spring and summer is proving troublesome for bees.
The weather has delayed farmers from planting their crops, leaving beekeepers to work overtime to try to salvage their season and the honey.
“This season with all the cold and especially the rain that hasn't stopped, yes the flowers are there, but the bees aren't getting to the bloom yet,” said Joel Laberge, owner of the Miellerie St. Stanislas.
Now that the sun is shining, there's lost time to make up for.
Laberge said beekeepers and bees are working hard to salvage this season, which began three weeks late.
“Right now, for sure we are under our normal production. Normally we should have already taken honey out of our hives there and extracted. Right now we haven't taken out a drop,” he said.
The difficult spring and now summer comes at what's been a bad time for bees.
Producers estimate they've lost about 30 per cent of hives, meaning fewer bees to do all that work.
It's not just bad weather affecting the hives: There has been a worldwide decrease in bee populations linked to factors such as disease and crop pesticides.
Keeping hives alive is crucial to food production everywhere, said Laberge.
“The demand for pollination right now is extremely big. We go from the Lac-St-Jean area to the Baie Comeau area, for pollination there. Right now they're in cranberry bogs in Drummondville and vegetable patches everywhere. They need pollination,” he said.
As for this year's honey harvest, it's just getting underway – but still, just as sweet.
