Early spring weather this year has been less than ideal in the Southeast part of the country. It's been cool for much longer than usual, and wet and rainy often enough that local ducks are beginning to complain. Record lows in Florida and parts of southern Georgia actually brought snowfall to some areas, taking residents, and honey bees, by surprise.

The USDA maps that document this are all blue, showing temperatures averaging 7-12 degrees below average. That's a significant difference when it comes to plant growth rates.... Everything just sloooowwws doowwn.

From a beekeeper's perspective, this sort of adds insult to injury this season. It's been a very, very hard winter almost everywhere except the Pacific Northwest as far as bees are concerned.

For starters, long stretches of below 40-degree temperatures in the far South have restricted bees from flying and finding food. It's here that beekeepers have been trying to get bees to build up their populations on what are normally lush southern flowers. This slower than usual growth caused some beekeepers to forgo pollinating California's almonds last month, and may restrict both honey production and further expansion in the next month or so....

It’s official. 2009 was a terrible year to be in the honey business. Recently we polled our Honey Market Reporters and came up with an estimate for the U. S. honey crop for 2009. Our guesstimate was 119 million pounds, produced by 2,223,000 colonies. The USDA today released their figures (pdf). Though higher than ours at 144,108,000 pounds of honey, it is still the worst honey crop on record. Ever. USDA figures showed a colony count of 2,462,000 ... a couple hundred thousand higher than our guesstimate.

There’s a couple more numbers that are important here that need to be in the mix. For instance, some beekeepers always have some unsold honey at the end of the year. This honey, left over from last year (2008) has to be added to the honey produced this year (2009). Plus, you also have to add in the honey that was imported into the U.S. during 2009, and subtract the honey that beekeepers exported. This final figure gives a nice picture of how much honey was used in the U.S. overall during 2009. That total figure is 363,754,996 pounds. If you divide that total figure by average the U.S. population for 2009, you get a handy figure to have ... per capita consumption, which is, for 2009 - .903 pounds, or right about 14.5 ounces. Did you eat your pound of honey last year?

For more than 50 years, beekeepers have been taking bees to the almond orchards of California. For the first 25 years or so, almonds were simply a place to go for California beekeepers early in the season. A few from nearby states came over too, pollinated, and left. When done, they took a pittance for their trouble and went home. It was a simple game.

But then, the almond industry began to grow as demand for the crop expanded and growers needed more and more bees to pollinate those trees. At the same time other crops in the California valley began to decline as less expensive almonds were imported from other parts of the world. That freed up valuable space, so expanding was easy. Almonds take about three years from planting to production and it was an easy investment. The price of the nuts continued to increase so money was easy.

But then, the next limiting factor on the horizon became bees. These were the years, in the 70s and 80s, of real cheap honey, and beekeeper businesses began to shrivel because they were designed and managed to make money on honey, not pollination. Pollination was simply extra money, not bread and butter.

Next, tracheal and varroa mites came to stay, and again, beekeeping outfits began to disappear. At an alarming rate, it turns out. Suddenly, the almonds didn't have enough California bees, or nearby bees, or even bees from far-flung states.

Now, wouldn't you think some sort of visionary would emerge here and see the future? See that when beekeepers want the highest possible pollination price for the smallest (least-expensive to produce) colonies possible, and growers want the lowest possible pollination price for the largest (most-expensive to produce) colonies possible that something had to give?...

Interested in urban beekeeping, but don't know where to begin? Three experienced urban beekeepers will offer tips and tricks, and good advice to help you explore the wide world of keeping city bees during a Webinar Sunday, Jan. 24. (You can also start by asking these 5 questions for aspiring urban beekeepers.)

Here's a full description and how to sign up:

Recently we looked at the reasons for the looming honey shortage in the U.S., and the ripple effect this would have on beekeepers, on honey processors and users, and on the growers who require beekeepers and their bees for pollination. (The high stakes poker games going on right now in the back rooms of California almond growers is do or die for both growers and beekeepers.)

But, since the U.S. imports a majority of the honey we use in this country, a shortage here isn't a crisis for you or me. Honey processors simply look to offshore suppliers. It can, if you squint a bit, be considered almost a commodity, like soybeans or crude oil. But as you might expect, beekeepers see it somewhat differently.

In case you haven't noticed, honey is by far the most expensive sweetener on the market, a fact that those with less-than-honorable intentions have not ignored. As a result it is the sweetener that is most often counterfeited. I mean, did you ever hear of anybody selling fake sugar, or fake aspartame? Ever since ...

Too-cool, too-rainy weather almost everywhere gave American farmers great soybean and field corn crops this season, but kept summer blossoms from producing much nectar and kept bees from gathering what little there was. In lots of places (the Dakotas and Midwest and much of the east) the bees were barely able to keep up with feeding themselves and their young this summer. Everything they gathered they turned into more bees ... and, unfortunately, more mites. Excess honey just wasn't in the equation, leading to the worst honey crop ever, as reported here.

Down south and out west the dry, hot conditions accomplished basically the same thing. There was just enough, and too often not quite enough food to keep the bees going. They barely made it though the early and mid part of the season. Lots of bees, but no honey. Then, in the Midwest, especially the bountiful Dakotas and the surrounding states, the weather took on a kinder, gentler attitude in late summer, and beekeepers and their bees actually began gathering more honey than they could use. Surplus is what we call that honey ... and it puts food on the table and pays the bills. But there's a hitch....

Books have been written. Maybe you've read one on the subject ... or rather, one of those that has the answers, or thought they did.

Michael Schacker's A Spring Without Bees does a good study of the history of bees, beekeeping and the business of pollination. He outlines the initial discovery and trauma of Colony Collapse Disorder, looks at what the causes aren't – cell phones (remember that silliness?), mites, viruses. Then, finally, a pesticide – the pesticide, imidacloprid.

He focuses in on this family of chemicals and the effects of sublethal doses on bees and other organisms, and offers a host of changes that need to be made so these chemicals are either banned altogether, or are rendered useless. He also offers a long list of alternative behaviors so that these chemicals aren’t needed or allowed, and we can continue to have safe food. And he really has a thing for the chemical companies that make the stuff, the government agencies that allow it to be used without testing, and the politicians that continue to obstruct safe changes....

Over the last year or so a lot of samples have been taken, papers written, talks presented, discoveries made, interviews given ... but no definitive answers discovered.

From what I’ve learned, here’s at some of what’s going on ...

First off, some colonies die every year, in fact some die every month, every week, every day. They always have and always will. Bees are insects subject to the pressures of nature and the real world and they offer a bell curve of tolerance to those natural pressures ... no different than animals everywhere, domestic or wild, large or small. It happens. But because they are under the media microscope at the moment and live in a manmade box under the care of people, blame falls disproportionately on the glamorous and visible Colony Collapse Disorder and its (probably) man made cause. But for some bees in some places, sometimes, let's rule out Colony Collapse Disorder right off.

For a better picture, let’s back up a moment and see what peripheral activities beekeepers have been up to lately ... it’s been an interesting summer ... and it leads back to honey bee colonies collapsing....

Photo: Yeshwant-Chitalkar, in New York City

Elsewhere on this site thedailygreen.com is running Urban Beekeeping Photos. Nearly a hundred beekeepers have submitted dozens of photos of their colonies that live in an urban setting ... that are surviving in town ... showing that these city bees are doing just fine. I'm pretty sure this has never been done before and we hope you enjoy this celebration of bees in the city ... it's a first.

Yet, at the same time, this blog continues to document the march of Colony Collapse Disorder across the land. It's almost, but not quite ... "if it doesn't bleed, it doesn't lead". Spectacular and devastating news events are what get noticed. And for some time now that's a lot of what's been here. And that's because that's what's been happening.

Nobody appreciates the irony of this more than I, believe me. At the same time we are celebrating the life, and documenting the death of our bees. It leaves a strange taste.

The celebration idea was the result of an ongoing discussion the Editor and I have been having that finally came to be ... urban beekeeping is showing up all over, and the attention it needs has never been more important. Urban bees have arrived ... and we want to make sure they stay. In fact, there's a whole chapter on just this subject in the revision of The Backyard Beekeeper coming out next year. It's that important, and it's not been explored in this depth anywhere before.

One way to resolve this imbalance is to ignore one or the other. That's not an option for me. I want to ...

Have you been thinking about keeping bees? After reading more about bees in the last couple of years than in the last 20 has the thought of actually keeping bees gone from a mere whimsy, to ... "That’s something I could do, and I think I’d like to try," and having some in the back yard, or on the deck, or on the roof has become focused, and maybe ... just maybe ... possible.

And newspapers, magazines, shows on TV and even web pages keep showing beekeepers making honey, looking in those hives, and talking about pollination and how good bees are for the environment ... yup, this IS something to try, and they’re doing it in towns and cities and on roof tops and porches and empty lots and backyards, so maybe I can too? But where do you start? You don’t even know any beekeepers, and Home Depot doesn’t carry bee hives, Wal-Mart doesn’t have bee suits, and the farm supply store you pass on the way to work everyday doesn’t have bees for sale. So where? And probably more important, how?

OK ... here’s how ... First, see this earlier Do It Yourself Beekeeping article we did that talks a lot about getting started: Your family and neighbors, the law, hives and hive stands, protective gear, what kind of bees to get and where to get supplies. This is a good grounding in basic beekeeping so be sure and read it, but there’s not much about roof top or vacant-lot-in-the-city beekeeping. And there can be a big difference between city bees and country bees, and you need to know the differences. So read on....