Monday, February 25, 2019

2019 spring bloom markers

This Atlanta spring has been like no other year, nor have we ever experienced an average spring.    Yet, I want a rough guide to plan my spring beeyard tasks.   At the moment, hives are in a winter configuration with bee cozy hive wraps and bradford pear and redbud trees blooming.

On February 21st, Atlanta pollen count exceeded 1000 which coincided with a Growing Degree Days (GDD) of 90. I'll use GDD equal to 90 and compare this spring with previous years. I calculated GDD using data from the University of Georgia Automated Weather Network.  I'll also use Julian Day  which converts a MMM-DD-YYYY date format which spans 4 months (January to April) into a seamless day of year format.

In the graph notice:
  • similar Day of Year values between this year and 2018
  • warm 2017 outlier which reached a GDD equal to 90 on January 19
bee, bee cozy, beekeeping, bloom, Bradford Pear, climate, growing degree days, pollen count, redbud tree,

bee, bee cozy, beekeeping, bloom, Bradford Pear, climate, growing degree days, pollen count, redbud tree,

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