1991 Honey Report

The USDA Agricultural Statistics Service in Des Moines released the 1991 Honey Crop Report February 19th. Once again the number of colonies increased over the preceding year and production per colony remained low. The state average was 56 pounds per colony on 92,000 colonies of bees. The total production for the state was 5,152,000 pounds at $0.55/lb. for a total value of $2,834,000.

The trend since 1988 has been small honey crops but more colonies of bees in Iowa (see Table below). When you have such a good year as 1988, it appears a lot of people go into beekeeping or increase the size of an existing operation. Unfortunately, those bumper crops do not come along very often.

Five Years of Iowa Honey Production
YearHoney Producing ColoniesYield Per ColonyProductionPrice Per PoundValue of Production
198744,0001034,532,0000.54$2,447,000
198849,0001296,321,0000.47$2,971,000
198967,000906,030,0000.45$2,714,000
199070,000543,780,0000.53$2,300,000
199192,000565,152,0000.55$2,834,000
Adapted from The Buzz, newsletter of the Iowa Honey Producers Association in cooperation with the Iowa Department of Agriculture Land Stewardship, March, 1992.



This article originally appeared in the April 1, 1992 issue, p. 46.

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