We’re already well into our honey season, working through batch letter H already. Our batches are separated by date and location, and through the early parts of the season, I’m pulling a batch of honey pretty much every week. Batches range between about 30-70+ pounds, and I enjoy seeing the differences between each batch as the season changes, and the small differences even between locations in the same week depending on what’s blooming and where. This season hasn’t been as stellar as last year since our black locust tree bloom was wiped out due to bad weather (cold and rain) and the trees outside my home didn’t even bother blooming this year at all. Black Locust trees are generally one of our biggest spring nectar producers, so that’s a huge disappointment. Now we’re into the middle of June and seeing a dramatic slowdown when clover nectar should be rolling in, but the forecast holds a week of 90 degree temperatures and we’ve had very little rain. The bees still seem to be pretty happy and healthy otherwise, but it feels like we’re into mid July instead of just halfway through June. Fingers crossed for a little more rain though – we could all use it!
I did finally update all of last year’s honey guide which you can find here, and I’ve added the first five batches of spring honey to the guide for this year. I also finally got last year’s class photo together and put together some statistics. In total, we bottled 2,252 pounds of honey. Yep, just over a whole actual ton by weight. That 2,252 lbs is split over 39 unique batches, so we went through the whole alphabet once and doubled letters up through LL plus the End of Season batch. Last year was just a phenomenal year for honey production! I don’t think this year will even come close, but I’m pretty proud of the work the bees and I did last year to get all of that done. We took in 214 jar returns through last season which amounts to just shy of 18 cases of jars and saved me a whole trip out to pick up more jars. Honestly, I’ve never been so proud of my customers for embracing the jar return program, saving fuel to pick up new jars, and reducing the energy it costs to haul away recycling and re-make a perfectly good glass jar. It’s the whole reason we bottle only in glass since it’s nearly infinitely reusable. Anyway, here’s to another sweet year!