Honey, I'm hot! What summer heat does to honeybees

While the hot weather has many Calgarians worrying about the effect on their pets and children, Katie Merchant is concerned about her honeybees.

"I try really hard to humanize with my bees," she said. "We try to treat them any way that you would take care of a baby or a kid."

Merchant is the owner and operator of The Honey Merchants, a local honeybee farm with around 40 hives, or roughly four million bees. As high temperatures blanket parts of Canada, she's doing everything she can to keep her bees cool.  

"We're just working to adapt where they need to adapt, and do what we need to do to make sure that they're comfortable."

Like humans, honeybees are also trying to cope with the heat.

As temperatures rise, the pollinators can become stressed — and in extreme cases, die — reducing their productivity and reproductive abilities.

Male honeybees, also known as drones, are the most susceptible, said Alison McAfee, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of British Columbia. 

She said her research has found half of drones die from heat stress after being exposed to temperatures of 42 C for six hours. While outdoor temperatures have so far not exceeded 35 C in Calgary, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada, McAfee said temperatures inside the hive can be much warmer. 

In the short-term, intense heat affects how bees behave and produce honey, McAfee said. 

Normally, honeybees focus their efforts on foraging for nectar and pollen to support their colony, but when temperatures heat up, they have to divert their efforts to cooling off.

"Some of those foragers then need to change tactics and actually forage for water instead," said McAfee. "They're still foraging, but they're not pollinating when they're foraging for water."

Bees use water to cool off, she said, bringing it back to the hive where they can force it to evaporate by fanning their wings.

This, however, shifts the bees' focus away from producing honey, said Daniel Swan, owner of Bowness Blossoms Apiary and member of the Calgary and District Beekeepers Association.

"When the heat comes up, they have to dedicate their entire workforce to air circulation," said Swan.