Henderson said after the meeting that the 2007 year’s combination of a freeze, drought and wildfires created an agricultural catastrophe that not even Hollywood could have imagined. “It was our ‘Perfect Storm.’ You couldn’t come home, sit down and write any better way to ruin the bee business.”

Tim Melton of Echols County said he will produce 33 percent of the amount of honey he normally produces from his 1,250 hives, of which 60 percent is comb honey.

“I really didn’t know anything about the Noninsurance Assistance Program,” Melton said. “But it looks like it wouldn’t have helped me much this year with so much of my crop being in comb honey anyway.”

Comb honey is considered the higher quality honey by consumers, who push its demand up to $1.75 per pound, compared to $1 per pound for extract or “drum” honey, Ben Bruce said.

Bryan Bennett has 1,700 hives in Clinch County and lost 50 percent of his honey production this year.

Dan Pittman of Ware County, who has 800 hives, described a sort of lingering depression from watching his 800 hives burn up in the flames of the wildfires that swept through Ware County.

“One monstrous ball of fire came out of the swamp, and when it got to land, it crowned the trees and maneuvered like a locomotive,” Pittman said. “It destroyed everything.”

Pittman said he’s seen tornadoes tear up his hives and endured a freak lightning strike that hit a tree and then struck and ignited a hive next to it. But the firestorm that killed thousands of the bees that have brought him his income for years was almost too much.

In the aftermath, Pittman lost 70 acres of timber but says he can get reimbursed for 75 percent of the losses under recently approved federal relief. But there is no help for comb honey farmers.

It may have taken this disaster to change that situation.

Comb honey farmers who have thrived for decades suddenly find their crops wiped out from 30 percent to 100 percent in one fell swoop. As most finish up harvesting what honey can be saved and prepare to relocate their bees for annual treks to pollinate other crops like cotton in other areas, the grim reality sets in that there is no federal disaster support to help them recoup even a portion of their losses.

Ben Bruce said it wouldn’t surprise him if Clinch County bee farmers lost $1 million or $2 million in earnings in 2007.

“I don’t have the facts to support such a projection yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was more,” he said.

Emily Watson, Rep. Jack Kingston’s agriculture liaison and district representative, told the bee farmers at Homerville City Hall that they are seeking a clarification as to whether comb honey farmers can get disaster relief if any is approved.

FSA Executive Director Terrie Wolford read aloud the provision in the current farm law that says only extract honey farmers qualify.