The Sweet Work of Honey Bees
Honey bees are synonymous with their main food source – honey. It’s even in their name! Despite that, they aren’t the only eusocial insects to make honey. Stingless bees and some bumble bees also make honey, and even a few species of wasps have been known to make or consume it. However, honey bees have become semi-domesticated by humans because of the quantity of honey they produce. Other species may make honey, but honey bees make it in much larger amounts, making them highly valued and widely kept by people. Humans have been harvesting honey for thousands of years, enjoying it not only for its sweetness but also for its nutritional and medicinal properties.
As their name suggests, honey bees create and consume honey – doing all the work themselves, from flower to beehive.
Foraging and Creating Honey
Honey bees forage from flowers, collecting nectar from the nectary of each bloom. It’s also worth noting that honey can be made from honeydew – the sugary liquid secreted by certain insects like aphids. When bees forage for nectar and pollen, they exhibit flower fidelity, meaning that on each foraging flight, a bee only collects from one species of flower. Once collected, she stores the nectar in her honey stomach (or honey sac) for the flight back to the hive. Inside the honey stomach, enzymes begin breaking down the nectar, starting the process of converting it into honey. The forager also consumes some of this nectar herself for energy to fuel her return flight.
Once back at the hive, the forager transfers the nectar to a house bee, who passes it along to other workers. Each bee adds her own enzymes to the nectar with every exchange, further breaking it down. The final worker deposits the nectar into a wax cell and fans her wings to reduce the moisture content. Fresh nectar is about 70–80% water, and if left at that level, it would ferment instead of becoming honey. To prevent this, the bees continue fanning until the moisture drops to about 16–18.5%. Once the nectar reaches that perfect consistency, the bees cap the cell with wax, sealing and protecting the finished honey from moisture and contamination. This is when nectar officially becomes honey.
Why Honey Is Important to Bees
Honey isn’t just a byproduct for beekeepers – it’s essential for the bees’ survival. Honey serves as the colony’s main source of carbohydrates, providing the energy needed for every aspect of hive life. Bees use it to fuel flight during foraging, maintain brood nest warmth, and power the constant activity inside the hive.
When nectar sources dry up – during rainy weather, summer dearths, or long winters – honey becomes the colony’s stored energy reserve. Without enough of it, bees quickly weaken, struggle to raise brood, and can even perish before the next bloom. A strong, thriving hive depends on adequate honey stores to sustain its population year-round.
The Beekeeper’s Role: Assessing for Honey Harvest
Now that the honey’s made, a bee’s job is over and the beekeeper is making the decisions.
Assessing for honey harvest is an important aspect of beekeeping. Beekeepers want to harvest as much honey as they can but also leave enough for the bees to have stores to survive during dearths as well as over the winter. Though many people focus on winter stores, you must consider how much the bees have in the summer as well – summer colony starvation is a real thing. This is a delicate balance and can be determined by a variety of factors. A low nectar flow year will see little honey stored. A hive that has had to battle parasites or disease will have less honey stored due to lower population numbers. A recently robbed hive will have low honey stores. Only big, robust, healthy colonies produce excess honey – usually colonies with 40,000 bees or more.
Honey production can vary greatly from season to season, depending on several key factors. A strong honey flow with consistent nectar availability is one of the biggest influences, while weather extremes or periods of nectar dearth can quickly reduce production. Colonies must also have enough drawn comb available for bees to store incoming nectar—without adequate storage space, foragers will stop collecting. Colony size, strength, and overall health play major roles, too. Any reduction in population from swarming, splitting, or poorly timed brood breaks limits the number of foragers available during the flow. Because it takes about five weeks for a bee to go from egg to forager, brood production must be well-timed to ensure a strong workforce when nectar is abundant. Robbing incidents can also reduce stored honey, further impacting a colony’s surplus.
Hives need adequate honey stores to get their populations through the winter and into the first spring bloom. Depending on where the bees are, that can range from two to six months with no nectar flow.
When looking for potential frames to harvest, beekeepers want to find frames that are at least 75% capped. If not, they can either leave the frames in, allowing the bees to cap them for later harvest or for their winter stores. They can also remove the frames and dehydrate them by using fans.
Preparing for Harvesting
Beehives have different sized boxes to place on them, including sizes of frames that are bigger and smaller. A lot of beekeepers have different preferences for box sizes for most of the year, but for honey harvesting, medium boxes are very popular to use as honey supers. Whatever the size, you want to place honey supers on your hives before the nectar flow begins, adding them as they fill the frames out.
Honey can be quite weighty. The weight will depend on number of frames per box (either 8 or 10) and how full the frames are, but in general: shallow boxes are estimated for 35-40 lbs., mediums 50-60 lbs. and deep 80-100 lbs. It’s most common to use medium boxes for better ease of moving the boxes. When beekeeping, always remember to protect your back.
Harvesting
Harvesting honey is a messy, sticky business, but is most beekeepers favorite day of the year. Harvesting includes prepping hives, making sure there are no bees on the honey frames or in the honey supers. This can include advanced set ups or simply brushing the bees off the frames.
Once the frames are taken far away from the hives, beekeepers first uncap the honey and then put the frame into an extractor. It’s important to make sure the cappings are either removed or punctured to allow the honey to be extracted.
Once the frames are put into an extractor (following the extractors instructions/weight distribution), it will either be manually spun with a hand crank or spun automatically. Once they begin spinning, the honey will begin seeping to the bottom of the extractor. After several minutes of spinning, and constant checking that the frames are emptying, the frames are removed and either replaced with more that need extracting or completely finished.
Cleaning & Storing equipment
An easy way to get your frames cleaned up is to give them back to your bees. They’ll make quick work of cleaning the remaining honey from the frames. This is a win for the bees because they get back some of their honey and a win for the beekeeper because it simplifies the process of cleaning up.
Once your frames and equipment are clean and dry, they’ll need to be stored. Equipment and frames should be stored in a clean, dust-free space over winter. You especially need to take care of your frames and the precious wax your bees have worked so hard to make. They should be protected from moisture and strong smells and should be guarded against pests such as mice and wax moths. You can use bins with lids, in a space such as your basement or storage space with no extreme temperature fluctuations.
Bottling
Once the honey is extracted and filtered, it’s easy to just pour into bottles. There are hundreds of bottle options – it all comes down to preference. Honey never goes bad. It can crystallize in bottles, but placing a bottle of crystallized honey in a warm water bath will fix that.
