This sign on eastbound Highway 92 directs to the Wehr Honey Farm. Photo by Sam McIntosh.

Dry conditions this summer in southeast Iowa may have hindered crop producers, but for a different kind of farmer less rain was beneficial.

Keota honey producer Ron Wehr comments on this year’s honey producing season, “It was a really good year because a dry year is usually better than a wet year, because the bees can fly everyday. And when it rains a lot it washes the nectar out of the flowers so they got to wait two or three days for the nectar to come back, if it does come back. So it’s been a really good year for honey production.”

September is celebrated as National Honey Month, as this month marks the end of the honey collection season for honey producers. Beekeeping has grown in popularity over the past few years, with a larger number of producers than ever in the Iowa Honey Producers Association, “I’ve been keeping bees for over 30 years and we were running with 500 members, now we’re 1200 plus members. In our southeast Iowa group we have over 40, so there’s an interest in beekeeping right now. Especially with all the publicity about colony collapse here five or six years ago, and everybody wants to keep bees right now.”

Anyone who’s interested in taking up beekeeping can register for Wehr’s beekeeping class that he instructs at the Kirkwood Community College Washington County Regional Center in February.