Beekeepers across the county are calling this the worst honey season in at least a decade, after a wet spring delayed early nectar flows and a late cold snap in May killed off blossoms just as hives were finally building strength. Most of the county's hobbyist beekeepers say their harvest came in at roughly half of a typical year.
Port Alden Beekeepers Association president Walt Simmons, who keeps fourteen hives on a property off Meeting House Road, said he pulled about 180 pounds of honey this year, down from a usual haul closer to 400 pounds. "I've had bad years before. I haven't had a year where the spring and then the frost both went against us," Simmons said.
A rough spring for the whole hive
Rain kept bees confined to their hives through much of April, cutting into the early flow from maple and willow that colonies typically use to build up strength after winter. Then a cold snap on May 9 dropped temperatures into the low thirties overnight across most of the county, killing blossoms on fruit trees and blackberry brambles just as they were opening.
"Bees can wait out a rainy week. What they can't do is get nectar from a flower that got frozen before it opened," Simmons said. "That's not a bad week for the bees, that's a hole in the whole season."
Beekeeper Priya Deshmukh, who keeps six hives in her backyard on the west side of town, said several of her hives came through the summer light enough on stored honey that she had to feed them sugar syrup earlier than usual this fall just to get them through winter. "Normally I'm taking honey off in August and not thinking about feeding until November. This year I was feeding by September," she said.
Simmons said the association isn't recommending members treat this year as a sign of a longer-term problem, since honey seasons have swung this widely before, but he added that two of the county's newer beekeepers lost hives outright this year and may not restart next spring.
