Florida beekeepers reel from Hurricane Ian disruptions

As Hurricane Ian approached Florida in September, Jeremy Ham had one thing on his mind: honeybees.

His bees, like those of hundreds of other beekeepers in Florida, were in the middle of their fall honey flow as Ian barreled toward the coast as a Category 4 storm, with sustained winds of 150 mph.

“If you get anything above 40-mile-an-hour winds, all of that flower bloom is going to blow off the tree,” Ham said. “Then the bees are going to miss out on that really important buildup going into winter.”

Ham’s business, Old Florida Bee Company, had hives spread out across southwestern Florida, and he and his employees in Myakka City had to focus on their own safety.

After seven hours of nonstop lashing wind and rain, Ham surveyed the damage. The water was so high he had to swim. Old Florida Bee Company lost 2,760 of its 7,000 hives. Ham estimated the damage at $2 million, including the loss of bees, crops, trucks and other equipment.

“We didn’t think it would be this bad,” he said.

The Florida State Beekeepers Association estimated that Hurricane Ian destroyed between 150,000 and 300,000 beehives, a loss that could have far-reaching consequences across the United States. Many beekeepers keep their hives in Florida in fall and winter before leasing them out to large farms from coast to coast to assist in pollination for the country’s food supply.

“Bees don’t make honey for us to eat for our biscuits,” John Coldwell, the association’s president, said. “Bees make honey so that they can survive through the next season.”

Coldwell said at least 100 beekeepers in the state would never recover.

The decimation of beehives and feeders, as well as nectar- and pollen-producing plants that the bees rely on for food, prompted mass recovery and donation efforts. Greater Good Charities, a global nonprofit group that helps people and animals during disasters, worked with Mann Lake Bee & Ag Supply, the University of Florida and the beekeepers association to distribute more than 500,000 pounds of syrup and 113,000 pounds of pollen substitute to feed nearly 1.7 billion bees.

“The flora comes back; all we were trying to do is get these folks enough food to get them over the hump,” Coldwell said.

It was not the first time Greater Good Charities and the beekeepers association had come to the aid of beekeepers. In 2018, after

Hurricane Michael slammed into the Florida Panhandle, Greater Good Charities helped feed a billion bees, said Noah Horton, the organization’s chief operating officer, “to ensure the stability of our food system.”

At least three-quarters of flowering plants require the assistance of pollinators, including bees, butterflies and moths, to produce fruit and seeds, and about one-third of the food humans eat depends on pollination by honeybees. Climate change, pesticides and habitat loss are contributing to a steep decline in bee populations, and commercial beekeeping is vital to the production from honeybees.

Of Florida’s 800,000 beehives, about 60% are focused on pollination, Coldwell said. The state’s honeybees are key pollinators for California’s almond harvest, he said.

They are then shipped to Montana for alfalfa pollination, followed by Washington and Oregon for pears and cherries; across the plains to Wisconsin and the Dakotas for cranberries; to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Pennsylvania for apples, peaches and cherries; and finally to the Northeast for blueberries and cranberries before being sent back down South.

The impact of the loss of so many Florida honeybees could extend beyond fruits and vegetables. Alfalfa is a primary food for livestock.