Another year of roller-coaster temperatures means honeybees are faced with yet another hardship.

When temperatures drop below 40 degrees, bees huddle for warmth and rely on whatever honey is in the hive.

But those stores can be depleted during long, warm falls when bees are still active and there are no flowers to forage. Add in a warm winter, during which many pollinators are lured out of their hives too early, and you have trouble.

“We have winters that are not truly winters,” said Michele Colopy, an Akron beekeeper and program director for the state’s pollinator stewardship council. “The climate change has so confused them.”

February in central Ohio was super warm, and winter didn't snap back until March, putting bee colonies in danger of freezing to death or starvation.

“At least the last three years we’ve had this problem,” said Barbara Bloetscher, state apiarist with the Ohio Department of Agriculture.

>> VIDEO: Urban beekeeping in Columbus

That's another obstacle added to the already long list of threats to honeybees and other native bees. Other threats include Varroa mites, pesticides, herbicides, loss of habitat and non-native flowers.

“Those kinds of factors can really knock out whole species or groups of bees," said Karen Goodell, an entomologist at Ohio State's Newark campus.

In fact, beekeepers reported a 44 percent colony loss during the 2015 honeybee season. Last week, the rusty patched bumblebee became the first bee to land on the nation’s endangered species list.

The stakes are high. Ohio farmers rely on bees to pollinate about 70 crops, including tomatoes, cherries, squash, cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, blackberries and alfalfa. It's estimated that bees play a role in the production of one-third of the food in the United States.

With a new bee season weeks away, Ohio’s growing network of experts and beekeepers is armed with more ideas on how to protect pollinators.

“It’s been hard for bees over the last 30 years,” said Reed Johnson, an OSU entomologist. “It’s an entirely human-driven problem, and it’s going to be up to humans to solve it.”

Urban versus native hives

From July to September, urban honeybees struggle to get by. “It’s a tough time for bees in the city,” Johnson said.

As part of a recently published study, Johnson co-led research on how to ease that stress.

The researchers set up five honeybee colonies on Columbus’ western edge, where suburbia ends and agriculture begins, Johnson said. Then they eavesdropped on the hives to determine whether the insects preferred rural or urban foraging when given the choice.

They found honeybees overwhelmingly opted for rural flowers over neighborhood landscapes. That suggests urban gardeners need to think about more than just flowers, and consider mimicking rural abundance by planting clover, goldenrod, legumes, herbs, fruit trees and shrubs.

“Just because it’s blooming doesn’t mean a bee will visit it,” Johnson said. “Honeybees are choosy, but they’re not choosy for things that are hard to grow.”

Other research efforts across the state are focusing on hundreds of struggling Ohio bee species that don’t enjoy the name recognition or public concern that honeybees do.

“If something comes along and wipes out honeybees, who’s going to do the pollination?” said Goodell, who oversees a handful of native-bee research projects. “It’s (about) not putting all your eggs in one basket."

Many native bees are solitary and make their nests by burrowing into crushed gravel, wood, mud, clay banks or sand. While they don’t produce honey, they actively pollinate crops and native plants, and forage during various times of the year.

“They ensure everything gets a visit ... They pick up a lot of the slack,” she said. "There are some that are probably on their way out.”

City beekeeping buzzing

In 2016, an estimated 5,786 beekeepers registered with the state of Ohio — up from 4,838 the year before. Since January, an additional 169 have joined the ranks, Bloetscher said.

“We have more beekeepers every year,” she said.

Many of the new keepers live in metropolitan areas, she said, where bees pollinate trees, backyard gardens and wildflowers found along trails and streams.

“Honeybees are essentially a managed crop at this point in the city,” Johnson said.

Keeping bees is like having a thousand pets, Colopy said. Owners must check for pests, such as Varroa mites, make sure the hive is in good shape and the bees are fed. Hazards include everything from honey-stealing swarms to neighborhood traffic.

For a variety of reasons, Johnson said, urban beekeepers produce less honey than their rural counterparts.

“You work harder to have less success," Johnson said.

Nina Bagley raises queen bees in her German Village backyard. She spent this week preparing dozens of hive starter kits, complete with a queen and five attendants. One will be donated to the Statehouse, which lost its colony this past winter.

She has 11 years of experience fending off threats to her hives. “They’ve got so many bad things coming at them,” she said.

But bee advocates say there are ways to support urban pollinators. Leave weeds in your lawn or spray herbicides in the evening. You also can nourish bees with a birdbath or a garden full of clovers, fruit trees, sunflowers, lavender, sage and cone flowers.

“I realize for a lot of people they're creepy crawlies,” Colopy said. “We cannot sterilize our environment of every insect.”

.

.

mrenault@dispatch.com

@MarionRenault