Although a couple of hives did decide to make swarm prep in June, and July, for the most part the bees are now satisfied to stay put, and are focusing on making honey. It looks to be a good honey year so far, and I am busy collecting the bounty of their work. With the right weather conditions, and adequate forage, a healthy hive will produce enough honey to feed itself over the winter (on the order of 60-70 lbs in Michigan) and may also generate 40 or more pounds of extra honey. That is a pretty amazing feat, when one considers that in its life time, an average honey bee produces about 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey. To understand how that can translate into 100 or more lbs of honey, remember that a healthy hive reaches a peak summer population of about 50,000 worker bees, each of which lives for about 6 weeks. 50,000 bees adds up around 4000 tsp of honey, or about 60 lbs, and over spring and summer 3-4 generations of bees will pass through a hive.
The process of making honey starts with mature worker bees, known as foragers, who leave the hive and seek out flowers to collect nectar. Nectar is a sweet liquid produced by flowers to feed insect and animal visitors, including bees. Those visitors in turn carry pollen from flower to flower as they take the nectar, providing pollination services for the plants. Nectar primarily contains water (about 80%), and sugar in the form of sucrose. Sucrose is identical to the sugar you can buy in 4 or 10 lbs bags at the supermarket. To become honey, the sucrose must be broken down into its two simple sugar parts, glucose and fructose, and the water content must be reduced to between 16 and 19%, a process known as dehydration.
Honey bees collect nectar from the flowers and carry it in their honey stomach. As they collect the nectar, an enzyme called invertase, which comes from the bee’s salivary glands, is added. Invertase is what breaks the sucrose down into fructose and glucose. Once back at the hive, the foragers regurgitate the nectar and pass it on to house bees, who continue the process of ingestion, regurgitation and passing on. Ultimately, the nectar is deposited into the cells of the comb, where the bees fan it, using evaporation to assist with the dehydration process. (Use this link to learn more about how the bees turn nectar into honey). When the water content has been reduced to between 16 and 19%, the honey is done. It is important for the bees to reduce the water content into that range because honey with water content above 19% is prone to ferment, making it unusable as a winter food source for the bees. Because honey is hydroscopic, meaning that if left exposed to air it will reabsorb water, the bees seal the finished honey into the comb with a wax cap. The wax capping prevents the honey from reabsorbing water, thereby maintaining the appropriate water content without significant attention from the bees.
As the bees in my hives begin making honey, they first store honey in the boxes at the bottom of the hive, beside and just above the area where they are raising more bees. That honey is critical for their winter survival, when they will not have access to nectar for food, and is not mine for the taking. Once they have filled the bottom boxes with bees, and honey and pollen, I add an extra box to the top of the hive. That box is referred to as a honey super, and it is from there that I collect my harvest. Once a frame of comb has all or most of the honey cells capped it is ready for harvest. On harvest days, I check my honey supers for capped honey. I gently brush off the bees from frames that are ready and bring the frames back to the workshop. To remove the honey from the comb, I cut off the wax cappings. I then put the frames into an extractor, a device that uses centrifugal force to spin the honey out of the comb, without destroying the comb itself. My extractor has been christened “Dorothy” by a friend who pointed out that it looked like the data collection device DOROTHY in the movie Twister.
Once the honey is removed from the comb, the frames are returned to the hives so the bees can fill them again, if nectar is still available. To get the extracted honey ready for bottling, I gravity filter it to remove any debris added during the uncapping and extracting process . I do not ultrafilter it, or heat (pasteurize) it. Although doing so can significantly slow the process of crystallization that occurs with natural honey, it also dramatically changes the composition of honey. Ultrafiltration removes any pollen collected with the honey. Pollen provides a unique “signature” that allows the source of honey to be traced, but also is the most likely source of the seasonal allergy benefits that many people report they get from eating local honey. Heat destroys multiple components of honey that are unique to nectar. And, as honey that is adequately dry does not spoil, pasteurization is not necessary. Most of the honey available from large scale food distributors is ultrafiltered and heated, to reduce the chances that it will crystallize during storage prior to being sold. Therefore, if you want the benefits of nectar and local pollen, look for raw (unprocessed) local honey. If you live close to me, I would love to be your source!