Each honey season starts with the bloom of the soft maples that provide food for the colonies just stirring from a long winter. The dandelion bloom provides the first big source of nectar and pollen that allows the overwintered colony to expand and store fresh nectar.
After the dandelions, the honeysuckle provides a nice source of very light and mild-tasting nectar. Some years the black locust trees will bloom in early June and produce a lovely, light-colored and floral-tasting honey, and the sumac can add a spicy flavor as well. In mid-June the pasture legumes start to bloom, and it is from these that the majority of the year’s honey crop is made. White clover, vetch, sweet clover and birdsfoot trefoil fill the meadows and provide ample nectar for the bees to store as surplus honey. Around Independence Day, the basswood trees bloom and the bees come back to the hive with a lovely greenish-tinged nectar with a wintergreen minty aftertaste. The basswood flow makes some of the best comb honey around.
At the tail end of summer, the goldenrod, joe-pye weed, and asters provide a nice nectar flow of darker-colored, stronger-tasting honey to round out the season. Up to 90 pounds of honey is left on each colony to provide food for the bees themselves in the coming winter as they cluster and buzz to stay warm, waiting for another spring to arrive.