POWER — Staff at Smoot Honey in Power spent the last two weeks playing catch-up after April's early snowfall.
“The cold has been really tough on the bees and the last week we’ve pretty much been playing catch-up, doing two weeks worth of work in one,” said Mark Jensen.
Jensen says they are hoping for a much better crop compared to last year.
“You know, it goes three good years and then you have a bad year, but last year was our fifth-worst crop ever, but our worst crop is better than some of the beekeepers' we know best crop.”
Last year‘s drought created havoc for a lot of farmers — including beekeepers.
Jensen says that the lack of honey production is primarily due to the lack of crops for the bees to feed on, as well as different farming tactics.
Smoot Honey has been in business since the 1960s, producing around 600,000 pounds of honey per year on average.
