HONEY could be the new form of toilet paper.
Not in the literal sense of course, but as shoppers rush to stock their pantry, beekeepers are reporting a surge in honey sales.
But unlike toilet paper which can be more easily manufactured, bee habitats which were destroyed in recent bushfires in places like East Gippsland and the south-east NSW coast could take years to recover.
It follows a steadily rise in wholesale honey prices as the after suppliers reported increased demand for the product in the first quarter of 2020.
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Victorian apiarist, Neil O'Mara, a beekeeper of 53 years, harvests about 120,000 kilograms of honey annually.
He lost 300 hives at Tumbarumba, NSW, in the January fires.
An additional 500 hives were smoke-affected, slashing the yield of the existing hives which eventually had to be rebuilt with healthier bees and a new queen.
"The supply of honey is definitely going to cause issues for suppliers going forward," Mr O'Mara said.
Most of the veteran beekeeper's hives are now located in central Victoria near Bendigo and Rushworth, however, with winter months away supply of honey in Victoria is expected to almost cease until production resumes in September.
"The biggest impact is that we've lost a lot of country that might not produce honey for quite a long time," Mr O'Mara said.
"This season we were able to find quite a few unaffected trees but many beekeepers have lost many forest sites and the impact of that will be quite substantial for years to come."
While beekeeping is a transient profession and apiarists can shift hives from one location to another, the economic impact of the bushfires and now the coronavirus is being largely felt by the industry.
Goodes Honey managing director, Terrry Goode, packages 2000 tonnes of honey annually and said the bushfires along Australia's eastern coast had pushed wholesale honey prices up by 40 per cent in four months.
"It went from about $4.80 a kilo to $6.20-$6.50 which is a very big jump and hard to pass on," Mr Goode said.
"Demand is still there for pre-packed, smaller stuff for the 375 gram, 500 gram and one-kilogram buckets but commercial demand for things like our three-kilogram buckets has slowed right down due to the virus."
With reports of bulk buying of toilet paper and flour, honey is also on the must-have list.
"On the smaller packs people are going crazy like the dunny paper but scale for large honey buckets has dropped for commercial and industrial trade has eased up," Mr Goode said.
