To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Honey Bees?
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:50:59 -0500
We had the Easter freeze last year too, and drought, yet bee populations
look pretty good. I think you all further west have had cooler weather, you
are on the other side of the rain from us, where the jet drops down. Here
it's headed north with us on the dry side, and the wet line only comes over
once a week or so to cool and wet us. Lucky is usually 10 days to 2 weeks
ahead of us due to his lower elevation, but my Asian pears bloomed more than
a week earlier than his. I've called twice now and asked how much rain he'd
gotten from a front, we get the leftovers from their 4" and floods. We've
been running about 1" or so a week, a respectable amount but nothing like a
surplus, whereas over in the TN Valley my friend is getting about 3/10 per
week. So the pattern of the jet stream "sticking" in the middle of the
country hasn't really changed, it just weakened in the winter. We've had
sunshine for about 5 days now and are terrified. Anytime it isn't actually
raining I'm worried about drought. Donna