Cold is Good
Created on 12/15/2009
It’s been a might chilly around here lately. At the beginning of the week, we woke to actual temperatures of -25 degrees. The highs didn’t crack zero. I hate it. I understand the “snow bird” logic, and every year wish I was in Yuma with my husband’s aunt and uncle. They’re enjoying mild weather and have veggies already growing.
But, since I won’t be going anywhere warm in the near future, I need to be positive. The cold weather does make life easier in some respects. For example, now I know why we don’t have boll weevils, the destructive exotic species that wiped out cotton crops in the 19020’s. In an article sighting a study from Mississippi State University I read they’ll die if they are exposed to six days of sub-freezing temperatures. That’s a good thing.
Extended cold spells is another reason the Africanized bee populations haven’t traveled past southern Nevada and Utah. European honeybees, whether feral colonies or the ones in hives, cluster tightly around the queen keeping her safe and warm, while maintaining the internal temperature of the hive around 90 degrees through body contractions (bee shivering, in other words). No matter how cold it is, they cling together working as one keeping the colony warm. (We actually tested this one winter by installing thermographs on the inside and outside of one hive. During a couple of days there were a one-hundred degree temperature differences.)
Africanized bees can’t do this for the time required to pull through a northern winter. They can hold it together for a short amount of time, enough to survive a brief cold snap in the South, but can’t do this for months. Since bees are big part of our life, I’m very happy we don’t have to worry about stumbling across these honeybee-on-steroid cousins when we capture a swarm or even check our own hives.
Although the cold is definitely beneficial to minimize many insects that are prevalent in other parts of the country, we can’t seem to have cold enough temperatures to take care of the problem of the exploding mountain pine beetle population. The mountain pine beetle is native to the area, but during the right conditions when trees are stressed due to drought or overcrowding, they thrive and kill millions of pines. This is evident in many parts of the West.
The beetles are vulnerable before they burrow beneath the bark for the winter, but in order to kill them now, we would have to have temperatures of -30 for at least five days. As much as many people want these beetles gone, that’s brutal weather to wish would happen. So, since it doesn’t look like the cold is doing much good, I think I’ll just pray for a Chinook, those warm “snoweater” winds!
