Posted on 06/13/2002 6:00:56 PM PDT by Willie Green
Edited on 09/03/2002 4:50:39 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
PHOENIX -- Arizona's honey industry is struggling because of urban sprawl, parasitic mites and cheap foreign imports.
Production of the rich elixir sought by connoisseurs for its low moisture content and traces of citrus, ironwood, mesquite and catclaw blossoms is down, along with the number of domestic bee colonies and the average wholesale price of honey.
The drought in Arizona is also posing a problem for the struggling industry.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
My grandfather-in-law the Methodist minister taught my husband and me how to keep bees. We recently moved and have not yet set our hives back up. The varroa mites are a real problem . . . however if you have just a few hives it is treatable by fumigating each hive with a gas that kills the mites but not the bees. It has to be measured out just so, and you have to wait a certain number of days between application and gathering the honey, so it is impossible for commercial beekeepers to manage.
Between the mites, nosema disease, and killer bees, I'm surprised that ANYBODY is keeping bees anymore. We'll probably start back up next spring, though.
No, but I certainly appreciate the efforts of those who are.
I've always made it a point to purchase locally produced honey rather than any of the national brands.
(Although that may be somewhat more difficult to do since I've moved to Las Vegas.)
As for the other factors welcome to the natural fluctuations of a market subject to the whims of nature. They should count themselves lucky, initial projections of killer bee migration was supposed to put them out of business in the mid 80s... turns out it's too cold here for them thar bees (Tucson is pretty much the northern border of killer bee country and we don't deal with many of them). You just gotta weather out the tough times.
Years ago, Wildwood Bee Supply was located in the most downtown of downtown Atlanta, a couple of blocks from the state capitol building (the owner has since retired). They had a hive built into the wall of the shop, an observation hive with glass sides so you could draw back the cover and watch the bees at work. Teachers in the know would take a side trip to Wildwood when they did a Capitol tour.
Those bees just hightailed it over to the Capitol grounds and helped themselves to all the nice flowers and trees over there. The owners just kept stacking supers on top of the observation hive, and the bees kept filling them up!
What most folks don't realize is that a good sized flowering tree like a tulip poplar or sweetgum will support a couple of hives of bees all by itself. Where we used to live, there was a huge tulip poplar or tulip tree (liriodendron tulipifera) right by our front door. It was funny to watch the bees -- they would come out and then take a right angle turn two feet in front of the hive entrance to go STRAIGHT up into the top of this 75-80 foot tall tree, ignoring clover & flowers. Great honey, too, very dark, very flavorful.
There are hardly any towns without flowering street trees, even if there isn't much open space.
knuthom, what breed of bees ya got? How many hives? Comb or extracted honey? Wax or artificial foundation? Do you change out your queens every other year?
Gee, sorry, lotta questions. Long time since I talked to another beekeeper, and absolutely the first time on line!
Well Welcome to FreeRepublic!
We don't discuss the honey industry very often,
but the topic does pop up from time to time.
Here are a couple such articles I found in the archives:
U.S. beekeepers face honey of a crisis
You may wish to browse these old threads and "ping" others who share your interest in beekeeping. Enjoy!
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