Lack of Rain in the Cape Fear continues to impact bees among other NC Wildlife

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — We’re not expecting any rain until at least Sunday, and the ongoing drought is now taking a toll on local wildlife including honey bees.

Thousands of honey bees are struggling to produce wax and honey as dry conditions limit their food sources.

Beekeepers say honeycomb production is one of the most energy-intensive tasks for bees, requiring significant resources just to survive and build their hives.

Susan Warwick is with the New Hanover County Beekeepers Association. She says native flowers are not producing enough nutrients right now, making it harder for bees to find food and leading to a noticeably slower honey season.

 “The resources in the flowers are what they use for their carbohydrates so they’re not getting enough nutrition from the low nectar source in the flowers,” said Warwick.

On the other hand, ground bees also known as solitary bees—don’t produce honey and rarely sting. but they’re also being impacted by the lack of rain.

These bees dig into the ground to create small burrows, using nectar primarily to mix with pollen and form a food source for their larvae.

Wilmington residents Rachelle and Bill Dries say they noticed an increase in bees after using their sprinkler system, not realizing at first what was attracting them.

” It was a little bit of a shock, there are a lot of bees in our front yard. For the plants we only run it like 10 minutes a day every other day and we found out they like water so we tried to turn it off because we thought that would make the bees disappear, obviously that didn’t work,” said Dries. 

Ground bees are strongly attracted to maple tree nectar. 

To protect bees in this ongoing drought avoid using pesticides and constantly water your native plants.