A local bee keeper says this summer has been one of the best he’s seen for local honey bees.
Paul Dinn is with Adelaide’s Newfoundland Honey in the Goulds.
Nearly all honey bees in the province are domesticated and kept by beekeepers.
Bees typically forage over a roughly 5 km range from their hive, and Dinn says a scarcity of bees in a particular area may mean that someone keeping bees may have moved or their colony has failed.
Dinn says June was an excellent month for his operation.
He says it’s usually around now that they add a second honey box to their hives to collect honey, but this year, most of their hives already have two honey boxes while they’ve made up close to 70 new beehives.
Dinn says habitat loss is the greatest danger facing honeybees and natural pollinators.
He says bees actually do better in cities where there are plenty of flowers for them to sample from. He suggests leaving as many natural spaces as possible for the bees especially in agricultural areas.