Bee Culture Editor Pegs 2009 Honey Harvest @ 119 Million Pounds - Worst Ever Thx To CCD, Weather

[hatrack]

So what we have is a pretty good picture of U. S. honey production this past season ... which is a good part of the overall picture of what honey costs, but certainly not all of it. Imports from honey producing countries around the world certainly have an impact on the honey market in the U. S. but imports are a function of production in those countries, too, as is demand in the U. S. market. So we need to start at home.

And the key player this year ... the weather! No surprise there if you ventured outside more than once this summer, no matter where you live ... it was one weird weather event, all summer long. Most of the east and mid-west was cool and wet, the south was hot and dry or way too wet and much of the northwest and west was dry and hot, too. Florida and the gulf states, particularly Texas and Louisiana did fairly well this summer, as did the mountain states and California. The consistent top 10 honey producing states are the 2 Dakotas, California, Florida, Montana, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Texas and bringing up tenth, depending on the year ... Idaho, Georgia or New York. These 10 states produce right about 75% of all the honey in the U.S. each year ... meaning the rest of us pretty much produce squat every year.

But how much honey? Twenty four years ago, before Varroa mites came to live here and before honey production was a major industry in several countries as an export market, the U.S. was producing something like 220 milion pounds a year, with hardly any honey imports at all. Of course back then, even a minor producing state like Ohio had 9,000 beekeepers. Last year, the U. S. produced only 160 million pounds, and Ohio had about 3,200 beekeepers. You can see the problem.

Last year the U.S. produced, by our estimate, about 61 pounds of honey for each of the 2.564 million colonies we figured were honey producers for a total of 156.4 million pounds of honey. USDA measured 161.1 million pounds. We’ve been that close since we started. I like our numbers better, but why quibble over a 3% difference.

So, this year our predictions are that 2.223 million colonies (down from last year because of colony losses to colony collapse disorder and last year’s poor honey crop) will produce 53.7 pounds of honey each, for a total of 119.37 million pounds of U. S. produced honey ... this is, friends, the worst honey crop ever. EVER!

EDIT

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/blogs/bees/honey-beekeeping-47102806