Getting your player ready...
BRUCE, S.D. — South Dakota honey producer Richard Adee pulls a rectangular beehive frame from an extracting machine and points to a bell curve-shaped pattern of honey and wax.
In a good year, the frame would be full.
Adee Honey Farms in Bruce will extract and ship about 5 million pounds of honey this year, off from what Adee considers a good year of about 8 million pounds.
“We’re on the tail end of the summer, and it’s definitely going to be a short crop,” he said this week.
Adee is not alone. A month-long stretch of cooler summer temperatures in the Dakotas has honey producers anticipating a drop in the states’ honey crops as extraction gets underway.
North Dakota and South Dakota are the nation’s top two honey-producing states.
