(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
‘This Will Take Years’: Florida’s Beekeepers Reel From Hurricane Ian [1]
['Remy Tumin']
Date: 2022-12-14
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 miles per hour.
“If you get anything above 40-mile-an-hour winds, all of that flower bloom is going to blow off the tree,” Mr. Ham said. “Then the bees are going to miss out on that really important buildup going into winter.”
There was not much he could do. Mr. Ham’s company, 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, Mr. 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. Mr. Ham estimated the damage at $2 million, including the loss of bees, crops, trucks and other equipment.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/14/us/hurricane-ian-florida-bees.html#:~:text=The%20Florida%20State%20Beekeepers%20Association%20estimated%20that%20Hurricane%20Ian%20destroyed,consequences%20across%20the%20United%20States.
Published and (C) by Common Dreams
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0..
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/commondreams/
