What's the Buzz around Woodland Creek honey farm??

August is a busy and exciting time of the year around Woodland Creek Honey Farm. 

We get to see, touch, taste and feel the fruit of our labor! Our priority in August is our annual honey harvest and getting to see the results of all the bees hard work. While we appreciate folks commenting on how much they like our honey. We don’t make it, the bees do. We just steal it! The actual process of making honey from nectar is a miraculous one that the bees follow and goes something like this. 

1. Collection:

In the fourth week of their life, honeybees become forager bees scouring the area around their hive for pollen and nectar. Although its spring and summer, honeybees know that winter is coming and they need to get busy while the resources are available to make food, (honey) for them to eat during winter when the resources are all gone. 

So, bees collect raw nectar, which is rich in sugars but also very diluted with water. They will forage between three to five miles collecting the collecting this precious liquid which has a high moisture content of around 80-95%. When they collect a full load, they return to the hive to pass it off to honey making house bees. 

2. Trophallaxis:

Once back at the hive, three week old house bees, receive the nectar from the forager bees through a process called trophallaxis. Trophallaxis in bees is the process of food exchange between individuals, primarily through mouth-to-mouth contact. I know, I know, the fifth grader in me has all kinds of things to say about this! But it’s actually a crucial aspect of social insect behavior, particularly in honeybee colonies, facilitating communication and nutrient distribution. This exchange can involve nectar, regurgitated food, or secretions from head glands, and it plays a vital role in colony health and organization. The honey making house bees regurgitate the nectar and pass it between themselves, exposing it to the drier air and creating more surface area for evaporation and bringing its moisture content down. This unripened honey is put into the hexagonal shaped cells made of bees wax that is called comb. Once filled with honey, the comb is now called honeycomb. 

3. Drying:

Once in the honeycomb, bees fan their wings to create airflow within the hive, which further accelerates the evaporation of water from the nectar, bringing the moisture content down even more. As the moisture goes down the sweetness is going up! 

4. Ripening:

As water evaporates, the nectar becomes thicker, stickier and more concentrated. It also will change color or darken as the moisture is removed, and the pollen condenses. The coloring and clarity of honey can range from very light, almost clear to deep dark brown. Honey coloring is determined by the type and amount of pollen it has in it. Some folks just love light and floral tasting honey, others gravitate toward rich bold dark flavored honey. We never know the color, flavor or sweetness of the honey until we harvest it out of the honeycomb, and each year it is a little different. 

5. Capping:

Once the moisture content is low enough (typically around 18%), bees cap the cells with beeswax, preserving the honey and preventing it from absorbing moisture from the air. This honey once capped will not go bad or spoil. Capped honey does not spoil due to a combination of its low water content, which dehydrates microorganisms, its high sugar concentration that creates an inhospitable environment for bacteria and mold, and its high acidity (low pH), which inhibits the growth of harmful microbes. Additionally, the bees add a glucose oxidase enzyme that, upon reacting with moisture, releases hydrogen peroxide, providing a natural antibacterial effect.

We like to let the bees dry or ripen their honey before we take it off the field. Some years, that’s a “wait and see” season as we are literally waiting to see, when it’s ready and at its best. Some beekeepers will harvest honey before its capped or dried, then either pasteurize it, or dry it mechanically before bottling it, we choose to let the bees do that. Often the honey our bees produce around 14% moisture content. 

When the “supers”, (boxes full of frames of honeycomb), are brought to the honey house, we uncap them, then extract the honey in our extractor, (think big centrifuge), and drain it into a clarifying tank. In the clarifying tank the light debris (wax, bee parts) floats to the surface and we pump the honey into our bottling tank, then into clean jars for our customers. 

The whole process of the bees making honey is indeed miraculous, and it all points to the Lord who loves us so much that he wanted to bless us with great tasting summer fruit that requires pollination, from which bees make their food for winter, and we get to enjoy. We are always saying, Isn’t God good. 

Once the honey is harvest, the work continues! We always leave around 50# of honey on each colony so they have something to eat during the winter. Because much of the nectar is no longer available we will supplement their foraging collection of nectar with sucrose (sugar) syrup, to make sure the colony has enough resources to get through the dearth of nectar at the end of the season as well as through winter. 

Beekeeping in JULY at Woodland Creek Honey Farm

July is a pivotal month in the beekeeping calendar here in our apiaries. Colonies are near their peak population and productivity, but this also marks a turning point in our seasonal cycle. Our focus is now starting to shift from the spring buildup to summer management and even early preparations for fall and winter. Understanding honeybee biology during this time helps guide our critical tasks.

Colony Biology in July

Worker bee populations are typically at their highest in early to mid-July. The queen’s egg-laying rate may begin to decline slightly by late July, especially if forage becomes scarce or temperatures are extreme. Fortunately, we enjoy mild summers here in the PNW. While brood rearing starts to taper off in some other regions, signaling the colony’s instinctive shift toward winter preparation, our queens are laying, and brood nests are continuing to grow. 

Even though drones are still present, their eviction may begin by month’s end in some hives elsewhere, especially in resource-limited areas. We typically don’t see that happening here until August.

Nectar flows from clover, alfalfa, fireweed, and other mid-summer sources are active in many agricultural areas, depending on region and rainfall. But for us, most of the berries and fruit nectar is coming to an end. Our bees will experience a nectar death that we need to be aware of and feed if necessary. In hotter, drier zones or during drought, nectar dearth can set in, creating a period of stress for colonies. This can lead to robbing behavior between hives, increased susceptibility to pests, and declining brood viability.

So this month we are;

Checking for Honey Ripening:

Supers may be full and ready for extraction, especially with the strong nectar flows in June. We use a refractometer to check moisture content (ideally <14%) before extracting. We want to avoid taking honey too early before the bees dry it as uncured nectar can ferment in storage. Typically, we harvest in late August or early September.

Monitoring for Mites:

July is the critical time for us to monitor for Varroa destructor. We use alcohol wash to measure mite infestation levels. If our mite levels exceed 2–3% per colony, we will treat them immediately to avoid colony collapse in late summer or fall.

Providing Water and Ventilation:

Bees need large amounts of water for cooling the colony and in their honey production. Fortunately, all of our apiaries have access to either a creek, pond or lake, that provide consistent a consistent water supply. Even though bees are masters at thermoregulation, on occasion we will prop open inner covers or provide ventilation to reduce hive overheating and moisture buildup.

Managing Space and Reducing Swarming Potential:

While the prime swarming season has passed, crowded hives in July can still swarm or develop supersedure impulses. We check for adequate brood nest space and remove excess queen cells if necessary. Often, we will move queen cells into a queen castle, to raise some late season queens.

Feeding if Needed:

When dearth or declining forage does come, we monitor the weight of our colonies and feed 1:1 syrup to maintain brood production and keep the colony strong. We don’t feed while honey supers are on, so our honey is never tainted or “funny honey.”

Watching for Pest and Potential Disease:

We keep an eye on our smaller colonies, looking for signs of wax moths, small hive beetles, and brood diseases like chalkbrood or European foulbrood. Strong colonies are always our best defense, and weak or queenless hives need our immediate intervention.

Requeening if Necessary:

July is almost getting close to being too late to requeen failing queens. We know that young queens lay more vigorously and overwinter better. However, requeening in July can be more challenging, so we have to be careful about how and when we requeen when it is necessary.

Combining Weak Colonies:

When a colony becomes queenless or is very small, sometimes the best move for us is to combine it with a stronger healthy colony. There are several methods we use to do this, but our goal is not let colonies get to a point where they need to be combined with another.

Collecting Pollen:

As long as the honey supers are on the colonies, we collect pollen. Some we feed back to the bees over winter in pollen patties. Some we collect to sell to our customers to help with their seasonal allergies. We use a pollen trap that is intentionally inefficient so we do not collect too much pollen, as it is the emerging bees source of protein.

Beekeeping in July, like most of the year, is about observation, prevention, and strategic action. It has been said that all beekeeping is problem solving. The decisions we make now set the stage for a successful fall honey harvest and healthy overwintering colonies.

We are also continuing our commitment to helping provide clean drinking water to impoverished people who do not have access to it. We do this by giving 40% of all our sales to Living Water International. When you buy any of our products; honey, chunk honey, honeycomb, pollen, or lip balm, nearly half of what you spend goes to help out those in need. THANK YOU!