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Scotland’s wild weather has been a buzzkill for beleaguered bees

© ShutterstockUnseasonable weather, pests and a formidable predator have all conspired to make this winter the hardest in years for hives.
Unseasonable weather, pests and a formidable predator have all conspired to make this winter the hardest in years for hives.

After months of wildly fluctuating temperatures, a siege by Asian hornets and even an extratropical cyclone in the form of last week’s Storm Eowyn, bees in Scotland are beleaguered.

Hives have experienced their most difficult winter in years thanks to our warmer climate waking the bees from hibernation earlier as well as making a better environment for a host of invasive parasites.

Apiarists were also left scrambling to save hives battered in last week’s 100mph winds.

Bad year for beekeeping

“These last couple of years have been very tricky, and 2024 in particular was bad for beekeeping,” said Matthew Richardson, who is the president of the Scottish Beekeepers Association.

“We had a really long, cold, wet spring right through into May, which meant a lot of plants weren’t flowering. The bees weren’t getting out to forage, and so the colonies didn’t get a chance to build up strongly.”

Of concern to Scotland’s 2,000 beekeepers is how climate change has affected oilseed rape, which typically flowers in May and which bees rely on for food.

 Irregular season cycles have had an impact. © Shutterstock / Polikarpova Darya
Irregular season cycles have had an impact.

After a series of cold, wet springs, the plant isn’t producing enough nectar, meaning bees go hungry.

While colonies of bees are struggling, wild bumblebees and wasps, which hibernate through winter, have been woken early by unusually mild weather in December. Beekeepers reported bumblebees in flight in the weeks before Christmas.

“The problem is those emergences are being triggered by warm temperatures and light levels,” said Matthew. “If we get an unseasonably warm week in December or January, it can trigger them to wake up artificially when there’s nothing to eat.

“A project at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew has measured this and we’re seeing instances of plants flowering two weeks later than normal, and insects waking up two weeks earlier than normal. They’re missing each other. It’s not good.

“There definitely used to be much more of a traditional kind of seasonal cycle where we knew seasons arrived roughly at the same time every year, and that we would have a certain amount of wind and cold and ice and snow each winter. We could match the seasons to dates. It’s much more difficult now.”

Pests

Over the past three decades, varroa mites originating in Asia have made their way to the UK.

“That can have a serious impact, and kill colonies,” said Matthew. “There are new pests and diseases on the horizon. Small hive beetles, which originate in Sub-Saharan Africa, have just arrived in Italy, which is why imports have been banned from Southern Italy.

“There’s another pest called Tropilaelaps, from Asia, which has now reached western Russia, which we think is in danger of travelling through Ukraine and into Western Europe. And of course there’s the Asian hornet.”

Matthew Richardson inspects his hive. © Supplied by Matthew Richardson,
Matthew Richardson inspects his hive.

Asian hornets pose a major threat to bees and other pollinating insects. They attack native species and can eat up to 50 honeybees a day, destroying hives.

Last year it was revealed Asian hornets had for the first time managed to survive the British winter, and experts believe warmer weather could see them thrive.

“We had some protection against the Asian hornet in this part of the world – these creatures might not do well in icy, cold weather,” added Matthew. “But as everything warms up we might find more of these pests are able to survive in Scotland where previously they couldn’t.

“There are a lot of systems for trying to trap the Hornets or restrict access to the hives, but often what happens is you just end up having to spend more time managing hives. For commercial beekeepers, beekeeping is a very borderline activity when it comes to being financially successful. No one goes into beekeeping to rake in lots of money and retire. It’s like a lot of farming, it’s a very hard job.

“And so anything that just knocks a little bit off your profit margins, productivity or increases the loss of colonies through the winter months really makes a difference as to whether you can survive.”

Mead making

Despite the challenges, beekeepers are innovating when it comes to using their harvest. Although thought to be consigned to history, mead, which is brewed from honey, is making a return. The ancient drink was popular with Viking peoples and in Scotland as far back as the Neolithic period 5,000 years ago.

“It is becoming increasingly popular, and is in fact why I got into beekeeping,” said Matthew.

“I was a poor student and started using honey to brew my own mead. After a while, instead of buying honey I thought I could keep bees and make my own.”

Mead comes in a variety of styles, including liqueurs, honey-based spirits, beer-like brews, and dry or sweet cider-style variations.

A new meadery from independent brewer Up Front is due to open in 2025 in the heart of Glasgow’s East End, and Scotland’s globally successful brand BrewDog has invested in mead brewer Lixir.

Meanwhile, counterfeit honey, created when unscrupulous suppliers mix honey with cheap syrup, has become an increasing problem over the past year.

The World Beekeeping Awards organisers withdrew cash prizes for this year’s ceremony after testing revealed that nearly half of the sampled products were suspected to be fraudulent.

Spring was colder and wetter than usual © Shutterstock
Spring was colder and wetter than usual.

“It tends to happen at a large scale, in industrial production, so if you’re buying from a big supplier and your honey comes from more than one country, there are more cases, and certain countries like China have a reputation for honey fraud,” explained Matthew.

“With small-scale beekeeping, we haven’t got the scale, technology or incentive to commit fraud.

“A beekeeper might sell around 100 to 200 jars of honey – even if I cut and sold double the amount, the effort wouldn’t be worth it.

“There are lots of methods being developed to detect fraudulent honey but the best way to do it is to buy from small-scale, local producers.”

As well as being profitable, honey is, according to beekeepers, a good bellwether for the environment.

“One of the things that’s quite interesting is that beekeepers have also become advocates for all insects,” added Matthew.

“I understand other insects perhaps don’t get as much attention. People don’t really care as much about insects as they do cuddly animals like pandas and tigers. No one wants to save the dung beetle or the earthworm.

“But people like bees, and they like the idea of keeping bees. They aren’t just economically important, they are vitally important to pollinating plants and crops.

“If we don’t have honey, we don’t have pollination. If something bad is happening to bees, then it’s happening to other insects. So they need a bit of TLC too.”