Honeybee colony in South Australia could be destroyed by frost

NEWSARENDA The northern part of South Australia is being put at risk by the possibility of a frost storm this week, with the possibility the honeybee colony there could be completely wiped out.

Key points:Bureau of Meteorology spokeswoman, Lisa Grieve, says a frost may affect southern parts of the state”We’re seeing a lot of reports of the colony moving out of their area of residence.

It may be that it’s been moved out of its wintering area,” she said.”

It’s a risk we’re looking at.”

We know that there are many factors that can lead to colony collapse.

The most important is the temperature and that’s something we are taking very seriously.

“The bureau says the temperature is expected to drop to around -20C by the end of the week.

The bureau has also issued a winter weather warning for parts of South Australian, with up to 1,000 hectares of crops at risk.”

You’ll see it in the south of the State as well as north of it, and it’s likely to impact on crops in those areas,” Ms Grieve said.

She says the bureau has a team working to monitor the conditions.”

They’ll be monitoring the area with the weather station and their staff and they’ll be liaising with their local beekeepers,” she told RTE.”

So we’ll have a team of people in the field monitoring conditions and also monitoring the bee population and that could mean they will move out.

“She says it’s difficult to predict exactly how widespread the problem will be.”

The forecast for this week has it going south of -20 degrees Celsius by the afternoon.

We think it’s a good time to assess the situation,” she says.”

If there is any further movement in that direction we’ll need to assess what that means.

“There’s a possibility that the temperature could drop to -20.5C by mid-week.

The temperature forecast for the week ahead:Friday: -20 to -15CSaturday: -15 to -10CSunday: -10 to -5C