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Honeybees and the Scottish Climate for the 5-14 Curriculum
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The Scottish Climate
In Scotland our climate is Oceanic - influenced by the Gulf Stream and the North Atalntic Drift, warm sea currents drifting their way northwards through the Ocean. This means we have no sustained extreme variations or exceptional events like tornadoes, droughts, widespread floods, or frozen seas, but the day to day weather is famously unpredictable. In Scotland you can literally have four seasons in one day!
Scotland and the rest of the UK enjoys a climate quite unlike that of other countries on a latitude of between about 55 - 62 degrees north. The Gulf Stream and North Atalantic Drift currents bring warmth, and the south westerly winds crossing them bring moisture. This creats a unique overall temperate climate which tends to be wet on the west coast and dry on the east. The topopgraphy of Scotland varies greatly across its landmass with coastlands, inlands, lowlands and highlands also affecting the local weather patterns. The annual temperatures average from around 1°C in January to 20°C in July with occasional snaps of very low and high temperatures (lowest ever recorded -27°C, highest ever recorded 32.9°C).
Click these links to see Met Office Scottish weather graphs:
- Sunshine - average monthly hours of sunshine
- Rainfall - average monthly rainfall in millimetres
- Wind - average number of days with gales
- Snow - average nuber of days with snow lying
For full details of Scottish weather go to the Met Office Website
The Honeybee (Apis mellifera), or Black Bee as it is sometimes known, is indigenous to the British Isles, and is therefor one of our native species. Their range is widely accepted as covering the most part of the British Isles. However it is in fact naturally defined by environmental limiting factors such as our diverse weather patterns affecting plant growth and forage opportunities, the length of growing season, availability of suitable nesting sites, prevalence of pests and diseases. Wild honeybee colonies are known to exist into the far north of Scotland where the climate is harsher and the summer seasons shorter.
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