Honey Business Is Sweet--and Sour

California beekeepers managed to pump out enough nectar last year to reestablish the Golden State as the nation’s top honey producer. But at honeybee farms throughout the state, there has been little comfort in recapturing the crown.

Though honey prices are higher than they’ve been in years, the industry faces a swarm of troubles, from cutthroat competition by foreign exporters to voracious pests that can gut production and drive beekeepers out of business.

Then there are more immediate concerns, such as an ongoing dry spell sure to shrink the amount of vegetation available this year for honeybees to feed.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture may count California as No. 1, but veteran beekeepers say the view from the top can be precarious.

“I wouldn’t paint too rosy a picture, because it’s not,” said Red Bennett, a 60-year-old former NASA engineer who two dozen years ago surrendered his pursuit of space travel for flight operations closer to earth in Ventura County.

“Beekeeping is pretty tough, and it has become quite difficult to stay in business,” said Bennett, one of the few commercial beekeepers left in a county once home to a thriving industry. “And right now, it’s looking pretty bleak.”

Although honey production was lower than the year before, California beekeepers still reaped 28 million pounds of the golden nectar in 2001, accounting for one-seventh of the nation’s production and edging out longtime rival North Dakota for top honors.

For more than a decade, the two states--along with South Dakota and Florida--have been locked in a nip-and-tuck battle for honey-making preeminence.

Like California, those states have plenty of flowering grasses, plants and trees on which honeybees like to feed.

But California has emerged as the top producer in seven of the last nine years, driven largely by good weather and a bountiful supply of sources available for bees to produce honey.

From the fragrant fruit orchards of the San Joaquin Valley to the just-blossoming orange groves around Ventura, nearly half a million colonies are busy each year serving up the sweet syrup--a crop valued at $18.5 million in 2001. That is its highest value since 1998.

Tulare County Leads in Honey Production

Tulare County leads California in honey production, followed by Riverside, Kings, Kern and Merced counties.

The bees play a vital role in California agriculture, and are brought in by growers to pollinate everything from almonds to summer squash in an effort to boost yields and quality.

But like farming as a whole, it’s an industry confronted by challenges and coping with change.

Perhaps as few as 350 beekeepers statewide now take part in the profession. That represents about a 25% reduction over the last decade, as smaller producers have been shooed away by pestilence, plummeting prices and other problems.

The same holds true nationally.

Domestic honey production nationwide has decreased 20% over the last decade.

And despite a recent run of higher prices, spurred in part by a decision to levy tariffs against foreign exporters, many U.S. producers still find themselves struggling just to break even.

“We’ve gone through some tough stretches,” said Lyle Johnston, a third-generation Colorado beekeeper and president of the 900-member American Honey Producers Assn.

“Beekeeping has changed so much in the last 20 years, and the industry has really shrunken,” he said. “I think all you’ll find anymore are the die-hards working at it.”

That appears to be true in California.

Eric Mussen, a honeybee expert at UC Davis, said not only are there fewer honey producers today than there were 10 years ago, but many of those who remain are veterans of the trade, rugged individualists unburdened by such conventions as time clocks or production schedules.

Trouble is, there aren’t a whole lot of younger beekeepers waiting to take their place, no new generation ready--or willing--to take on traditions that date back thousands of years.

Add to that a trend toward consolidation, with larger operations cornering a growing share of the honey market, and the result is an industry barreling toward an uncertain future.

“I would say it’s tenuously holding its own at the moment,” said Mussen, who works with beekeepers throughout the state under the University of California’s cooperative extension program.

“But it’s not too different from what you see in farming overall,” he said. “I think there are a lot of [beekeepers] who would be more than happy to turn the reins over to somebody else. The question becomes, who--if anybody--is going to take over?”

Out in California’s honeybee heartland, Tulare County beekeeper Max Eggman learned the trade as a child. His father and older brother worked with bees. And Eggman joined the profession when he left the Marine Corps in 1967.

Creating a Profitable Niche in the Market

Now, at 72, he’s managed to carve a profitable niche in the honey market, competing with larger producers by selling the sweet stuff at roadside stands and San Francisco farmers markets.

Still, he knows his industry is in decline. Managing 600 to 700 hives, he said it has become harder to compete with larger operations, which truck hives by the thousands to places where nectar is plentiful.

And there’s not a lot of money to be made, especially for newcomers who would likely need to go in debt to get off the ground.

None of Eggman’s three children chose to follow him into the field.

“It’s a dwindling industry, no question,” said Eggman, who operates out of the tiny community of Terra Bella, south of Porterville.

“I don’t see it being a dead end. I just think it will be harder and harder to be prosperous.”

In Ventura County, a small band of beekeepers helps keep alive an industry that first arrived in the late 1800s, a time before citrus hit its heyday and when bees were more profitable than cattle.

Just two decades ago, there were enough beekeepers to support a countywide association of honey producers, but the group disbanded about 10 years ago as smaller producers fell away.

Still, even though fewer than a dozen commercial producers remain, they’ve been a busy bunch.

Honey production and its value more than tripled from 1999 to 2000, according to Ventura County’s annual crop report. Beekeepers also nearly doubled the amount of money generated from renting hives to growers for pollination.

Like others around the state, Ojai Valley beekeeper Brian Cox has learned there are other ways to make money off bees.

Cox, 46, became a full-time beekeeper about 10 years ago, moving to Ojai in 1993 with 300 hives and a direct-marketing approach to pushing his products--honey, skin cream and lip balm--at farmers markets locally and in Los Angeles.

But he also started searching out farmers who could benefit from the pollination his bees could provide, a service that has become increasingly important as pests and other problems have decimated feral bee populations.

Like honey producers nationwide, Cox is in the process of retrieving hives rented to farmers in the San Joaquin Valley, where upward of 1 million hives are trucked in annually to pollinate that region’s almond orchards. With that pollination period wrapping up, Cox’s bees already are booked to provide the same service for Ventura County avocado growers.

“It’s the biggest deal for beekeepers,” Cox said of the hive rentals, which supplement honey production of about 30,000 pounds a year. “It’s basically what has kept beekeeping alive.”

In the end, beekeepers and honeybee experts say, no factor is more important to the industry than the one they have least control over: the weather.

Just last month, some Northern California beekeepers reported losing more than 40% of their hives as a late-season cold snap settled on Sacramento Valley crops where bees were being used for pollination.

And still looming are the effects of a prolonged dry spell certain to reduce the amount of sage and other flowering plants on which honeybees feed.

Ventura County honey farmer Bennett is doing what he can to get by. Along with his wife, Ann, he has been able to carve his own niche in the industry by processing and distributing honey for other beekeepers.

Millions of Bees Arrive During Springtime

His busiest season is approaching, as springtime signals the arrival of millions of bees from around the country brought to Ventura County to flit among the avocados and the ever-fragrant orange blossoms.

Working out of a mothballed egg ranch north of Moorpark, where he set up shop after fire wiped out his Piru Canyon honeybee farm in October 2000, he pumps out on average about 200 tons of honey a year for himself and others.

“I had to diversify the business in order to stay in business,” said Bennett, who has seen plenty of other honey producers fall by the wayside, unable to sustain themselves on prices as low a few years ago as they were when he first got into the business.

“Even if you get a good crop, you’re not guaranteed to make any money,” he said. “‘But we’re going to keep working at it because I decided a long time ago I was done working in an office.”