The final honey harvest is in. We had a particularly good year for bees; long warm summer with little rain to get in their way. As a result, many of my hives performed way above expectations and they look very healthy as we get ready for the winter dormant period. We also harvested the full gamut of varieties, varying from straight knotweed honey (the darkest one) to a very light multifloral that is mostly blackberry.
Here’s honey harvest stats to date:
2014: 414 pounds (about seven 5-gallon buckets!)
2013: 152 pounds
2012: 108 pounds
Some of that is due to adding the extra hives, but not much- most of it came from the existing apiary at Miami Foley. Those colonies are mature, whereas the others are getting started so aren’t producing much yet. Next year will be a different story, and I fully expect to be buried in honey! I’ll need to prepare; extracting and bottling all that honey is a bit of work, and you have to buy a lot of glass to hold it all. Here’s some of the harvest, ready for market, waiting on our living room floor. That’s less than half of it.
