Honey production is “much less” important due to drought

After a “more than average” 2022, beekeepers are concerned about low honey production and a shortage of flowers.

It’s “really little rain” that’s falling in Herault, which worries beekeepers on BFMTV. With “five or six millimeters over the course of two days”, the arithmetic does not exist: this year again, beekeepers Fear of dehydrationwhich covers an insufficient number of flowers to allow the bees to feed, thus honey production decreases.

“Heavy rain is neededthough, to make nature water well”, while the vegetation suffers in this section of the south of France. The flower, “the raw material which will give its nectar and its proteins”, is necessary, but lacks, laments the beekeeper.

The economic model ‘in danger’

It follows from this that at all stages of the production chain, “the bee suffers from deficiency, and therefore will suffer from all these deficiencies.” Then comes the beekeeper’s turn to “suffer” due to his inability to produce honey. “It is the economic model that will be at risk.”

But about twenty departments are already on drought alert in France.

The President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, announced, at the Agriculture Salon, “Sobriety Plan” on the waterevokes the “end of plenty,” against the backdrop of record rainfall deficits on a national scale.

Therefore, the beekeeper hopes for a rainy spring, in order to provide production this year, after the already complex 2022.

Harvest below expectations in 2022

But for the man who lives between Béziers and Montpellier, this year may look like the year before. In 2022, “we experienced severe drought and very hot weatherso (…) we have made much less honey than we could have done, ”he lamented.

In 2022, the French National Beekeeping Union (Unaf) estimated the honey harvest at “between 12,000 and 14,000 tons”, describing it as a “very complex year”, despite “a good exit from winter indicating a very good year”. It was without relying on dehydration.

Onaf noted in October 2022 that “in the south, in the face of a lack of rain at a very early time, the early crops (…) were more than average.”

And starting in May, “for many months, drought raged almost throughout the territory.” A situation that beekeepers hope will not be repeated in 2023, when France will have to import nearly half of the honey it consumes.