HOMERVILLE — The world comes to South Georgia and North Florida for one of nature’s most perfect products — comb honey. Produced mostly from bees’ pollination of gallberry shrubs, the honey will be in short supply this year.

Like every other crop in Georgia agriculture, bee honey production will be drastically reduced as a result of the Easter freeze, the worst drought in decades and wildfires that have burned thousands of acres, including land in Clinch, Ware and Echols counties where bee farmers lost hives to flames or honey production to smoked out bees.

“This is going to be a year people are going to remember for a long time, I think,” said Ben Bruce, owner of Bruce’s Nut-N-Honey Farm just south of Homerville on Hwy. 441.

“We run about 1,400 hives,” Bruce said. He annually produces almost 2,000 supers (the boxes bees make honey in), but this year suspects that he’ll only have about 200 supers.

“I use 10-frame supers that average about 40 pounds of honey,” Bruce said. Doing the math, 2,000 supers at 40 pounds of honey equals 80,000 pounds of marketable comb honey. But the 200 supers he expects to get this year times 40 pounds of honey equals 8,000 pounds of honey.

“I lost 90 percent of my crop,” Bruce said. “The Easter freeze killed the new growth on gallberry plants. Just two weeks later, the fires started at Sweat Farm Road 150 yards from where I have 18 bee yards on leased acreage. When the fire crossed U.S. 84, it hit a solid piece of my bee production. There were 1,000 or more hives in there.”

The hives weren’t destroyed in the fire — a miracle, in Bruce’s eyes — but the flames singed some of the super boxes, and the trauma of the heat and smoke surrounding the hives and the disruption of the bees’ honey making because of constant relocation of the hives pretty much ruined honey production. Also, the lingering heavy smoke stifled the bees’ activities.

“We use smoke to calm bees when we’re working with them anyway,” Bruce said. “So you can imagine what more than a month of smoke from wildfires caused. The bees couldn’t do anything. We can handle one disaster, but three disasters in a row? We need a helping hand on this thing. This is really bad. This is my livelihood. Bee honey is my main income.”

The story was much the same with more than 40 bee farmers who attended a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) meeting at Homerville City Hall last month to find out if any federal assistance is available.

At present, the federal farm law passed in 2002 provides no insurance protection for comb honey farmers. Only extracted honey, or “drum” honey, farmers receive protection. The federal government also provides no noninsured disaster relief funds for comb honey farmers. Most bee farmers, as a result, don’t have crop insurance.

And most haven’t reported their bee hives and locations to the FSA office in Valdosta, which makes it difficult for state officials to ask the feds in Washington, D.C., for disaster help, FSA County Executive Director Terrie Wolford told the bee farmers at the meeting.

“I only have five producers in four counties who have reported their hives,” Wolford said. “If you don’t have your hives reported to us, we can’t help you.”

Also in attendance were representatives of Sen. Johnny Isakson, Sen. Saxby Chambliss and Rep. Jack Kingston. FSA District Director Jeff Harden, FSA Farm Loan Manager Judy Kight and FSA Noninsured Crop Disaster program technician Susan Sparks also attended.

The current farm law that excludes protection and disaster relief for comb honey producers pretty much wipes out the hopes of these bee farmers for federal help in the face of the 2007 catastrophe.

“If it’s the airlines in crisis, or some big corporation, the federal government is all over it. They jump right on it,” said Walter Henderson, a bee farmer of 38 years who has 800 hives in Manor. “But the way I see it, we (farmers) are more important than the airlines. I’m not asking for a handout. I’m asking for a hand.”