Mario Kalvet, chairman of the Estonian professional beekeepers' association and who keeps over 700 bee colonies in Võru County, has gone so far as to call this year's honey season "catastrophic."

Kalvet said the resulting low supply means the price of honey will likely rise, while beekeepers are planning to turn to the government for aid.

"Well, we see the first solution being that we are forced to hike prices. Otherwise, we won't make ends meet anymore. I think that's a general trend in Estonia this year," Kalvet said.

As for this summer, many beekeepers will have to accept a failed honey harvest in a market which has been constantly battered by "honey fraud," mostly synthetic products sold as natural honey, Taavi Tull, head of the Kumalane firm, said.

"This year's honey harvest is really very poor. The yield is maybe 50 percent of a typical year. Normally, bees bring in honey in May-June and maybe a bit in early July, but most of those days this season it rained. As we know, bees do not fly in very rainy weather," Tull explained.

Usually, about 90 percent of the honey is produced before mid-July, and the yield after that accounts for about 10 percent of the year's production, meaning now a late summer surge is likely, and "the situation is rather dismal," added Tull, whose apiary business, at 1,700 colonies is reportedly the largest in Estonia.

The national beekeeping association is in the process of collecting information about the current state of affairs from its members and other beekeepers. "I guess we have no other choice than to maybe ask the state for help as well," Kalvet said.

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