By John Andrews

2009 was a rough year for South Dakota beekeepers.

Numbers released by the Department of Agriculture's Statistics Service show honey production in South Dakota in 2009 was down 17 percent to 17.8 million pounds. Still, that makes us the second highest honey-making state behind North Dakota (34.7 million pounds).

The honey business, like most agricultural ventures, is unpredictable, and the last five years have been especially turbulent. In 2005 bees made 17 million pounds of honey. In 2006 (a drought year) production dropped to 10.5 million pounds. 2007 rebounded to 13.26 million pounds, and 2008 skyrocketed to 21.38 million pounds.

South Dakota is consistently among the top five honey-producing states in the nation. Bees like our abundance of sweet clover and alfalfa. The nectar from those plants produces light honey, which is always in high demand. But beekeepers have run into the host of problems in recent years, most notably Colony Collapse Disorder, a mysterious disease that kills large numbers of bees and is currently ravaging colonies wintering in California.

Richard Adee is South Dakota's honey king. He started in 1958 and has grown his Adee Honey Farm, headquartered in Bruce, to 80,000 colonies, making it the largest operation in the world. When we did a story on South Dakota's honey farms in 2008,  Adee told us that keeping a few hives was once a nice hobby, but today it requires a serious commitment. "Unless they're really committed, and really want to learn and study what the problems are and how to take care of them, they just better not do it," he told us of people interested in the business.