BOSTON -- The cool and wet summer is having an impact on local beehives. Less honey production is stinging beekeepers, and some experts fear that the hives could die during the winter.

NewsCenter 5's David Brown reported that beekeeper Andy Reseska keeps several hundred hives buzzing with tens of thousands of honeybees. Flowering plants that feed these bees weren't blooming as much this year, which means honey isn't flowing and the bees' weight is down.

"What's more important is that the bees are light, meaning they don't have enough honey weight to sustain themselves through the winter," Reseska said.

Reseska is trying to "fatten up" his hives by feeding the bees sucrose. He hopes his hives survive the winter, but is not optimistic about others.

"Hobbyists will have a hard time putting on weight. Their colonies will have a hard time putting on weight for the winter as a result. They're not doing it as a livelihood, so they are going to fail to realize that the bees need weight and these colonies could die as well," Reseska said.

About 25 percent of foods people eat rely on bee pollination. If the bee population drops, the state's food supply will suffer. The big picture isn't good because of the changing landscape of Massachusetts.

"Grass lawns are now devoid of any flowering plants. It's just mainly trees in eastern Massachusetts. The loosestrife has become even more important," Reseska said.

The purple loosestrife is an abundant and available food source for bees. But the problem is that it is an invasive species and the state's trying to get rid of it.

"The purple loosestrife has taken over large areas of wetland where you have nearly a monoculture of this plant. What that's done is crowded out the natives," said Taber Allison, of the Massachusetts Audubon Society.