Most people only see honey once it's already sitting pretty in a jar. But there's a whole season of work that happens before that, and it starts long before harvest time.
In early spring, the hives wake up. After a slower winter, the bees start venturing out as temperatures rise and the first blooms appear. This is when the queen ramps up egg laying and the colony rebuilds its numbers after the quieter months. It's also when we start paying close attention to hive health, checking for enough food stores and making sure each colony is strong enough to handle the busy months ahead. You can read more about how we got started on our story page.
By late spring and into summer, things pick up fast. This is peak foraging season. Worker bees are out constantly, visiting everything blooming across the Lowcountry, from wildflowers and clover to flowering trees and garden plants. This is also the stretch where the wildflower mix really comes together, since the bees aren't sticking to just one plant.
Midsummer is usually when we pull our main honey harvest. Frames come out heavy, and we extract, strain, and bottle it with as little processing as possible so it keeps its raw character. This is the honey that ends up in your Local Wildflower Honey 12oz or a piece of raw Wildflower Honeycomb straight from the frame.
As fall approaches, focus shifts to making sure the hives have enough stores to get through the cooler months. We slow down on harvesting to leave the bees what they need for winter.
It's a rhythm that repeats every year, but no two seasons ever produce quite the same honey. That's the part we love most about beekeeping in Charleston. The bees are always responding to what's actually happening outside, and every jar in our shop is a little time capsule of that.