A bodacious black rooster with a high red comb crowed cockle-doodle-doo to herald beekeeper Danielle Ray's entry to the barnyard of her family farm. It's home to two ducks, 63 chickens, 12 goats, lots of rabbits and three beehives. She knows all the animals by name.

One little goat follows along as she walks through a fenced area where she keeps her three hives.

Ray has a lot of honey in those hives, but the bees are gone. February's balmy springlike weather was a curse to Northwest Indiana honeybees, fooled into leaving their hives in search of food to feed their premature brood. It cost many of them their lives.

“You expect to lose some bees every year,” said Ray, who lives in Crown Point. She has three hives on her property and tends hives with her mother in two other area locations. Most of the hives lost their bees.

“The weather this year has been really bad for bees,” Ray said. “They are the only flying insect that doesn't hibernate. They stay alive in their hive and keep the queen warm. When it is super-cold, they stay bundled nice and tight and do well. When it gets warm and they break the cluster, they go out and look for food, but there's nothing for them to eat. Some don't make it back to the hive, and when the sun goes down they freeze. When they don't get clustered up tight in the hive, they freeze. The warm-cold, warm-cold weather had a lot to do with it.”

Ray stood in front of her three hives, stacked wooden boxes. She pulled off the top box — called a “super” — from one of her hives revealing a thick layer of sugar and a sprinkling of dead bees. She put the super aside and looked inside the brood chamber, the center compartment. She pulled out a honeycomb to show the honey and the lack of live bees.

She's not the only one who lost her bees — and the weather is just one of several factors that puts bees at risk.

Ed Rice, president of the Northwest Indiana Beekeepers Association, said he lost 20 hives, most of them in the fall. The organization has more than 220 members and is growing throughout Lake and Porter counties. Some members live as far as Rensselaer, and Crete and Peotone in Illinois.

“This weather we've been having where it's been warm for a week and then cooled off, that's the worst weather you can have,” Rice said. “When it warms up, they make brood. When it cools off, they have more brood than they can keep warm. So they freeze up.”

He said other threats to honeybees include varroa mites, tracheal mites, American foul brood and European foul brood. Foul brood is a parasite that kills bees before they emerge from their cells.

Rice said he thinks it's possible some of his bees may have been lost to the varroa mite in the fall.

The problems are not just locally. In May 2016, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported a survey of beekeepers indicated honeybee colonies were down 8 percent for operations with five or more colonies from 2.82 million colonies Jan. 1, 2015, to 2.59 million colonies Jan. 1, 2016. The USDA cites varroa mites as a top stressor.

Honeybees are pollinators, important participants in the food-growing process. Almonds, apples, blueberries, cucumbers, melons and squash are some of the crops that require pollinators.

“For several years, pollinators — particularly honeybees — have been in decline,” said Rick Foster, professor of entomology/pest management for vegetable and fruit crops at Purdue University. Foster said he has special interest in the effect of insecticide on honeybees and other pollinators.

“One of the important stresses on honeybees and other pollinators is the loss of native habitat,” Foster said.

He suggests gardeners avoid using insecticides on plants when flowers are present. He also urges gardeners to use insecticide only as needed instead of on a schedule. In cases where flowers are always present, such as on tomato plants, “we start thinking about timing. Spray your garden or plants after the bees have left for the evening to minimize exposure. Look at your garden and make sure there's a problem before you take action.”

Foster urges gardeners to keep bees and other pollinators in mind when planting.

“They are important in a lot of different ways and we want to protect them. Think about planting flowers that are more attractive to pollinators,” Foster said.

The plants most attractive to pollinators are those high in nectar, according to Melinda M. Appold, assistant professor of landscape architecture at Purdue in West Lafayette.

“Plants are not created equal,” said Appold, who is putting together a bee farm garden at the entomology building at Purdue. The project aims to provide research opportunities and teach people how to choose plants to attract bees and other pollinators and beneficial insects. “Black-eyed Susans are good for pollinators because the centers are florets, and when it is blooming, each floret provides nectar.”

Appold said bees' vision allows them to see purple, blue, white and yellow. Therefore, flowers with red and orange colors are not as attractive to them. In general, Appold advises gardeners to have something blooming from March through October to provide honeybees with food throughout the time they are active.

Meanwhile, some of the local beekeepers who lost their hives will replace them with packages of new bees due to arrive the first week in April. Ray said she did not order new bees this year, but instead will await “swarm calls.”

“That's when a hive gets overcrowded or they replace their queen. The old queen takes all of the worker bees and finds a new house,” Ray said. “When people see a ball of bees (in a tree, on a mailbox, etc.) they panic and call an exterminator.”

Often the exterminator will call on a beekeeper to take the bees.

“For me, that's free bees. When I get a swarm call, I can put those bees in my hive and they'll stay,” Ray said.

Rice said he plans to buy 10 to 14 packages of new bees to replace the hives he's lost, and he also may try to catch a few swarms.

As a beekeeper for 20 years, Rice offered advice to Northwest Indiana gardeners who want to know how they can help the bees.

“Stop killing the dandelions in your yard. Dandelions are the first nectar flow for the bees in the springtime,” Rice said.

Nancy Coltun-Webster is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.