Honey Crop May be Worst Ever

The honey crop was terrible this year. Maybe the worst ever. We’re predicting a 130 - 150 million pound crop in the U.S. due to drought mostly, but lost hives last winter and the fact that many beekeepers spent this past summer recovering from the severe losses last year by growing bees instead of honey. (as a comparison, a 250 million pound crop was common 10 years ago).

Eastern beekeepers moved their bees from northern summer sites to southeastern over-wintering areas looking for honey and pollen. Midwest bees, those from MN, WI, IL, IN and some from the Dakotas moved south to the delta regions, Texas and areas of the south central U.S. Western hives moved, mostly, to California. Still, many beekeepers simply leave their bees right where they are and let them relax a bit when the snow starts to fall.

The hives that move will use this extended summer time to make honey and gather pollen to build their up their populations. Once they have gained some weight and produced more bees, beekeepers will make splits (dividing large colonies into 2 or 3 or even 4 smaller colonies) which in turn will build up so they are large enough to pollinate crops. This is exactly the point last year that CCD reared its ugly head. The colonies, once moved south not only didn’t build up but began declining – dramatically. And I’m told this is what some are seeing again this year, but it’s a bit early to tell how many.

The flowers the bees are visiting now are primarily wild flowers and the honey is a pretty good grade, but it’s a lot smarter to use it to make bees than to harvest and sell at a loss. Bees in those boxes in a couple of months are worth much, much more than the honey they’ll make now. Even so, those in Florida and southern California may soon begin making orange blossom honey and beekeepers will extract some of this premium crop. But a disease in the Florida citrus groves could be trouble later this spring as growers spray their trees for a pest that spreads a very, very lethal disease. It’s a hard time for beekeepers.

And like I said, honey isn’t the cash crop it used to be. Beekeepers have had to look hard at business plans to figure out how to make ends meet. Once, honey bought in this country was mostly made in this country and was mostly grocery shelf quality. Imports, mostly from Mexico and Canada went into bakery grade honey ... not an inferior grade, but usually darker and stronger and great for breads and meats and Honey Nut Cheerios. Now honey is a world commodity. Honey sellers can buy nearly any type of honey at nearly any time of the year on the world market and have it delivered to their door for the same price, and usually a lower price, than they can get U.S.-produced honey. And imported honey is no longer primarily bakery grade. It’s consumer-friendly gold.

So U.S. beekeepers, to make ends meet, have to look at cash flow, income potential, timing and labor costs. It’s become obvious that honey production alone, even two or three crops a year isn’t enough to pay the bills. Pollination, somewhere, sometime is also needed. And to get bees ready for this they need to manage them carefully and they need to have enough bees. More than enough bees because for lots of reasons it’s getting harder to get last year’s bees in shape to do this year’s business. This is what has made importing bees from Australia so important. Beekeepers here can’t produce enough bees fast enough so additional bees - imports - are needed. And there’s a story for another time.

But right now they are watching all these bees - U.S. bees and Aussie bees - and holding their collective breath. Healthy colonies in six weeks mean an income. But if CCD shows up again ... for many, it will be the auction block.