How we Harvest our Honey
A little run down on the honey harvesting cycle...
Harvesting typically takes place in spring and summer. This is because it’s when the bees are busy making honey, and therefore the only time in the year the bees have excess supplies.
In a nutshell, during the spring and summer months the worker bees (all female) fly out to the flowers, suck up the nectar, store it in their special honey tummies, take it back to the hive, and spit it into the open cells. At night, the bees fan the nectar with their wings to make a breeze and it off. Eventually the nectar becomes gooey, sticky honey, safely stored in these cells. The bees then seal the cells with a clean white wax, protecting the honey as a winter food source.
If it’s a strong hive they make enough to survive the winter, when there are fewer flowers to visit. This is why we only harvest in spring and summer! And we ALWAYS leave the bees with enough honey when we harvest.