It's too hot, men suffer, agriculture suffers, animals suffer, and bees suffer too. With the high temperatures of this end of July they stopped flying and this is reflected with serious consequences not only on the production of honey but also on their very important function of pollination in agriculture.
And the problems do not end here because with the high temperatures there is also a danger for the new broods for which the ventilator bees are busy cooling the inside of the hives so that they do not exceed 33 – 36 degrees by quickly waving their wings so as to reciprocate the air while those sinks instead carry water in the form of droplets to cool the environment. The danger therefore also concerns the future of the Italian bee population.
In the immediate future, this overwork of the worker bees is to the detriment of the normal pollination activity. According to Coldiretti's calculations, the first national production of acacia and citrus honey fell by 41% compared to the expectations estimated by Ismea. With the result - specifies Coldiretti - that this year the national production will be well below the over 23,3 million kilos of 2018.
The state of suffering of bees, which are an indicator of the state of health of the environment, is actually representative of the upheaval caused by the climate on nature, animals and plants. Farmers in the countryside are forced to resort to emergency irrigation to save crops suffering from high temperatures, from vegetables to corn, from soybeans to tomatoes because with temperatures above 35 degrees even plants are at risk of heat strokes and water stress that impair fruit growth on trees, burn vegetables and damage cereals.
The African heat wave is the tip of the iceberg of the anomalies of this crazy summer with the first half of July marked by bad weather with 10 hailstorms a day after a June that ranked second among the hottest since 1800 with a temperature 3,3 degrees higher than the average, a cold and wet May and particularly dry first months of the year.
In 2019 there was an evident trend towards tropicalization which - underlines Coldiretti - manifests itself with a higher frequency of violent events, seasonal lags, short and intense rainfall and the rapid transition from bad weather to heat. The recurrence of extreme events cost Italian agriculture over 14 billion euros in a decade between losses of national agricultural production and damage to structures and infrastructures in the countryside.
