Bees are the answer

“According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway, because bees don't care what humans think is impossible.” - The Bee Movie

Despite all odds, the bee is here, and with our help, here to stay. There’s a reason why you can still walk past the old Harvest Seasonal Kitchen building that has a massive yellow sticker with “bees are the answer”, it’s bee-cause we were onto something. Harvest, now Harvest at The Masonic, had the pleasure of joining Scott Keller of Keller Bees and Rick Wells at Water Boy Farms this past year for a late autumnal honey harvest!

Bees collect nectar from flowers and bring it back to the hive, where they transform it into honey through a process of regurgitation and evaporation, reducing the moisture content to make it more durable.

Honey is then harvested for the “supers”, which are the boxes stacked on top of the hive where the bees store honey. The frames inside these supers are where the honey is deposited.

When the bees have finished filling a honeycomb cell with honey, they seal it with a wax cap to preserve the honey. Harvesters remove these caps before extracting the honey.

Honey is typically extracted by removing the frames from the hive, uncapping the cells with a special tool, and then spinning the frames in a centrifugal extractor to separate the honey from the comb.

Many modern beekeepers use ethical methods that prioritize bee health, such as using flow hives (which allow honey to be harvested without disturbing the bees too much) and ensuring the hive is not stressed by too frequent harvesting. In short, if the hive is healthy and well-managed, the bees will continue to thrive even after honey is harvested. Healthy bees will also produce more honey in the following seasons, allowing the cycle to continue.