Closing up shop. Luella Bell hates to give up the beehives, but she and her husband, Horace, have a warehouse full of honey they can`t sell.

BARBARA V. PEREZ/THE ORLANDO SENTINEL

Beekeepers stung by imports
By Rich McKay
of The Sentinel Staff

Published in The Orlando Sentinel on July 08, 2000

DELAND -- Empty hives. Dead hives. A few stray bees zigzag in a sky that once buzzed with black clouds of workers, offering up sweet gold.

Broken hive frames -- a thousand skeletons of a beekeeper's empire -- are stacked head-high across the green fields of the Horace Bell Honey Co., tucked amid the pines just 30 miles north of Orlando.

This is the scene at what was the No. 1 beekeeping farm in the United States.

They're going out of business. The hives at this farm wait to be sold or burned.

Beekeepers blame China. They blame Argentina. The American Association of Honey Producers is blaming import rules that allow honey to come in at prices below the production costs of local honey. The association is gearing up for a lawsuit in the International Trade Court in Washington, D.C.

Beekeepers across America are feeling the sting of low-cost honey flooding U.S. markets. Much of it is from China and Argentina, coming in at prices far below what it costs American farmers just to process the honey, much less ship it to packers and grocery stores.

It's the reason the business owned by Horace and Luella Bell is folding.

The Bells spent a lifetime coaxing the pain out of bee stings and an honest living from honey.

It's a living Horace started when he got his first hive at age 5. Luella, his sweetheart, got stung by a bee -- one of his bees -- on their second date. She joined him in marriage and work just two weeks after she graduated from DeLand High School in 1964.

At its height, the business produced 1 million pounds of honey a year, and their bees traveled -- pollinating citrus in Florida, cranberries in Maine and almonds in California.

Now 36 years later, they're going out of business.

But the Bells can't hold out.

Right now, each and every one of their hives -- 40,000 of them -- are for sale.

So is the honey -- tons of it sitting unsold in the warehouse at the Bells' farm.

Orange blossom. Palmetto. Pepper honey. Gallberry is Luella's favorite.

All sweet gold, and the Bells say they can't sell it. At least, they and beekeepers across America can't sell it as cheap as the honey flooding in from China and Argentina.

"It's a heartbreak," said Luella Bell, sitting at her kitchen counter, wearing a bee T-shirt, counting pennies. A Bible is in arm's reach in every room.

"But we can't hang on until there's nothing left," she said.

Beekeepers across America are facing the same problem, said Lyle Johnston, a beekeeper south of Denver and vice president of the American Honey Producers Association.

"Imports are putting us out of business," he said. "They're killing us."

Cheap foreign honey, priced between 30 and 50 cents a pound, has flooded the U.S. market. American beekeepers say it takes them about 70 cents a pound just to break-even.

Does the imported honey taste good? Local beekeepers have nothing good to say about the flavor of the imported honey. But packers and the food industry love it because it cuts their costs.

Johnston and others in the industry accuse China and Argentina of keeping costs down by subsidizing their country's farmers. This is unfair, Johnston said, and is the basis of the upcoming lawsuit.

People should care because cheap honey at the market is going to mean higher food costs, Johnston said. That's because fewer bees means less pollination, which means smaller crops and higher prices, he said.

Paul Hendricks, the editor of Denver-based Bee Notes trade journal, said that a domino effect is just waiting to happen.

As large beekeepers fold, food will cost more, Hendricks said.

For the first time, there's a shortage of almonds in California because of a shortage of bees.

"You may not know it, but this is going to hurt you each time you go to the supermarket," Hendricks said.

Johnston has 7,000 hives and plans to hang on for another year. He and his brother can handle most of the work.

But the Bells are older, in their mid-50s. Their operation is far bigger and too much for the couple alone. And keeping on the staff is too expensive. A staff that once numbered 50 has been whittled to 11 in the past few months.

News of the Bells' decision flew across the nation among the tightly knit bee business, through cell phones and e-mails. Everyone in the bee business knows them, Johnston said.

Horace is considered a genius among beekeepers across the nation. His innovations, which he readily shared, helped beekeepers thrive when faced with plagues of mites and bore-beetles.

Horace and Luella made the decision themselves, but it hurts.

"We have a warehouse full of honey and no one to buy it," Luella said.

Horace wouldn't talk about the closing.

"He's taking it real hard," Luella said, taking a visitor on a stroll through the hives. "This is all he's done. I guess once you're stung, it gets in your blood and you don't want nothing else."

Posted Jul 7 2000 8:40PM